Xmas Special The Passage of the Fangirls
by trojanbirgit
Summary: PG for language. Preparations for Christmas in the Fellowship house are interrupted by the invasion of Legolas's stalkers, the Twins, and various unwashed, hairy Men. This is a Tribute to Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's 'BagEnders'. READ THAT FIRST!
1. Default Chapter

The 'I Can't Face a Christmas Without A BagEnders Special'

PseudoBagEnders Christmas Special

'The Passage of the Fangirls'

Part One

by Bridget and Trojie

Well, they said the characters could be used by others, so we thought . . . well, why not? It's Christmas, after all.

Disclaimer; None of the characters herein are ours. The Fellowship, the Twins, Faramir and Eomer all belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave, Sandra, Julie and the Legolusters are all from Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's slightly scary imaginations. The characterisation of the Tolkien characters is from LA and RD's BagEnders, which we are trying to emulate. We could be said to own Kirsten, the Smallest Fangirl, but she's not actually something we really want. If anyone wishes to claim her, she's yours for a cigarette and a pint. All events portrayed herein are fictional (we hope; if not, the world is a far scarier place than we ever imagined), and are not intended to resemble any real events (as opposed to things we've seen on television or read in a book). Should anyone decide to sue us for this, then we hereby claim the concept of rigging up a generator to Tolkien's rapidly revolving corpse as our own.

xxx

'Twas a week before Christmas, and Aragorn and Legolas were off out to save the world. Again.

Or rather, they were out to protest about the destruction of the world.

'Do you have your train tickets?'

'Yes Frodo.'

'Coats? Packed lunches?'

'Yes, Frodo.'

'Have you practised your revolutionary chants?'

Legolas brandished a sign saying 'Make Tea Not War!' and Aragorn started singing 'We all live in a terrorist regime! We all live in a terrorist regime!' before being twatted by Legolas with the sign.

'Good, I think you're all ready to g-'

'Wait for us!'

Merry and Pippin appeared around the corner with their own banner. It was one of those big, multi-person lengths of cloth with a stick at either end, for carrying at the head of any activist march. Frodo eyed it carefully before saying;

'Unroll it.'

'It's just a banner, you don't need to see it.'

'S'very boring. Not even something witty about oil.'

With that they edged backwards out the door and left. Frodo sighed.

'Just try and make sure they don't get arrested again, please? I don't want a repeat of the 'eight-year-olds busted in pornography sting' incident. Child Welfare are already suspicious about us.'

Aragorn and Legolas nodded dutifully.

'Now, when you get back we'll have visitors,' Frodo added. Legolas looked suspicious.

'Who?'

'Um, well, Elbereth is incarnating to discuss the custody arrangement for Christmas,' the hobbit began awkwardly, 'and the Twins are coming.'

'Why do they keep coming here? And it's a whole week before Christmas! Isn't it a bit early for festive guests to be arriving?'

'Well, um, the surf shop burnt down, and they and Dave don't have anywhere to stay-'

'Wait, Dave? Dave is coming here?'

'Yes, and-'

'No, I don't want to know any more. Aragorn, come on, let's go.'

'Finally.'

Frodo breathed a sigh of relief, watching through the little window next to the door to make sure they'd really gone, then shouted in the general direction of Upstairs;

'They're gone, you can come down now!'

The Twins appeared, cobwebs adorning their hairdos, and with Dave, who looked almost coherent this morning, in tow.

'Nice going little dude!'

The Twins had in fact been hiding in the loft, with Dave, for a week now. The surf shop had indeed burnt down, and they'd turned up on the doorstep, sorely bedraggled and doing the 'Last Puppy in the Shop' impression so well that it tore at Frodo's admittedly easily-tugged heartstrings. It was no trouble to sneak them supplies of food when the other occupants of the house were at work, and the only awkward moment had been when Dave, waking unexpectedly from his almost permanent semi-comatose state, had stumbled downstairs and settled down to watch 'Buffy' reruns with Gandalf. Fortunately for Dave, he was wearing cast-off clothes of Aragorn's, and as the episode he had arisen in time to watch was one of the ones where Buffy fought with Faith, Gandalf didn't even notice that the human on the sofa wasn't one of his usual housemates. Frodo had managed to hustle Dave away before anything untoward happened.

A soft 'glingleglingleglingle' noise manifested itself over the usual house noises of Gimli's pneumatic snoring and Gandalf's curiously penetrative heavy breathing. Then, in front of the astonished eyes of Frodo, Elladan and Elrohir (and the not-so-astonished eyes of Dave, who saw this sort of thing all the time while under various influences), a fussy-looking woman of about middle age appeared. She smoothed down her hair, then looked at Frodo.

'Hello dear,' she said. 'Perhaps a cup of tea?'

Frodo rushed to the kitchen. The Twins stared at the woman, and then in one voice said;

'Dude, that's Elbereth!'

'Like, should we kneel?'

'Don't be silly,' said Elbereth kindly. 'Why, your father's practically family. I'm sure Frodo has enough tea for all of us. And who is this?' she asked, looking at Dave. The Twins looked at each other, obviously going through a silent pantomime of 'you say it.' Finally Elladan gave in.

'Um, that's Dave. He's our friend.'

'Is he quite all right?' asked Elbereth concernedly, for Dave's eyes were worryingly glazed, and he was dribbling.

'Like, he's fine.'

'Just fine.'

'Um, he has to go over here now,' said Elrohir, steering his unfortunate friend into the cupboard under the stairs. 'Toilet,' the peredhil explained. Elbereth decided not to ask.

The whistling of the kettle broke the awkward silence.

'Ah, tea,' said the queen of the Valar happily, and led the way into the kitchen.

When they were all sorted and seated, and biscuits had been distributed (for posterity, let it be known that Elbereth Gilthoniel has a weakness for chocolate digestives), Elbereth broached the subject of the custody arrangement.

'Well, we've really got a bit of a deal for you, Frodo dear,' she said, regarding him frankly over her steaming teacup. 'Either you take Boromir permanently, or you take Boromir, Faramir and Eomer for Christmas every year.'

'What? Why? Boromir's the only one we have any responsibility to,' said Frodo, a little shakily. Elbereth smiled.

'On the contrary. Aragorn owes both Eomer and Faramir hospitality and succour in times of need; he was their ally. And you know how seriously he takes his kingship, if he thinks anyone's watching.' The Valier watched Frodo for a moment, then added, 'Look, Frodo, it's getting intolerable in Mandos at the moment. Fights all over the place, terribly messy, and they've broken three Christmas trees already. I think they're bored, all cooped up for centuries. So either you take all three for Christmas, or Boromir gets reinstated in the Fellowship. It's the only way.'

Frodo didn't even need time to think. 'Boromir, Faramir and Eomer for Christmas,' he said. He could just about justify having the three dead men here over the holidays, and was equally sure that accepting Boromir back into the household indefinitely would be met with bloody revolution on the part of Legolas and possibly Aragorn.

xxx

Later that day, in a very girly bedroom over the road…

'It's nearly Christmas, and those really hot twins are back, and it's just them in the house with the short gay bloke. It's Fate! Fate telling us through signs that we should storm Cute-Pointy-Ears-Guy's house!'

'His name is Lars. And he's mine!'

'Says who?'

'Says me!'

'Oh, well we'll just see who gets there first-'

'Alice, put down the lamp. Can we get back to the original proposition please? Do we really want to do this?'

'If Pointy-Ears-Guy-'

'_Lars_-,'

'Sorry, _Lars_, is going to be vulnerable, then I say we do it! We can hide and wait for him to come home! An ambush!'

'Sorry to nitpick, but what do the twins have to do with this whole thing?'

'Second prize?'

'Fate gives out prizes?'

'Is the gardening guy there?' piped up the smallest stalker from the back of the room. The others turned to look at her. She was twelve, with aspirations to teenage delinquency, and was the youngest sister of the Legoluster™ whose bedroom the meeting was being held in.

'Not sure. Why?'

'Oh, she fancies him,' said the sister in a withering voice. 'Don't worry about her. Now, how are we going to get in?'

'Abseil?'

'From what, precisely?'

'Dunno, but it worked in Mission: Impossible.'

'Ooh, I loved that film!'

'Yes, but to abseil down off things we need to be up high to start with.'

'Bugger.'

'I know! Let's make passports out of jam and dig a tunnel into Pointy-Ears-Guy's bedroom!'

'Jam?'

'Tunnel?'

'Oh for crying out loud!' The Sam fangirl was up and pacing now. 'If you're all really quiet, and do what you're told, I know a way we can get in.'

'How?'

'I'm not taking orders from you-' began the older sister, only to be repressed by a companion, who hissed;

'Look, if she can get us into the house I don't care what she makes us do, ok?'

'Mmmph.'

'Good.'

The Sam-stalker carefully started undoing her elaborate hairstyle.

The others watched with bated breath.

'Hairpins,' she said, flourishing a few. 'I'll pick the lock on the back door, and we can get in.'

'Great!'

'Tally ho!'

'Let's hunt some Lars!'

xxx

'Elladan, Elrohir, I'm going shopping!'

'Oh, dude, we need more flour!'

'What?'

'Like, we made Christmas lembas!'

'It's green!'

'It's a week before Christmas, it'd be green by the time we got to eat it anyway, the way you make it.'

'Well we can eat it before then, but thing is, like, there's no flour left.'

'So, we need more-'

'-so you can make mince pies!'

'And Christmas cake!'

'And more lembas!'

'Hang on, I thought lembas was made of mystical elvish ingredients. I don't remember plain High Grade Flour being one of them.'

'Well there are some mystical ingredients-'

'-mainly in the special lembas-'

'-but flour's the rest of it.'

'And vanilla essence.'

'Oh yeah, we might have, like, used all of that too.'

Frodo dutifully added 'flour' and 'vanilla essence' to his shopping list. 'Did you put any jam in it? I'm sure we had two jars last night, and they've both disappeared. Now, is that all?'

The Twins shook their heads. Frodo looked momentarily perplexed.

'Oh dear, I hope Merry hasn't been sleep-eating again . . . Now, don't let Dave dribble on any bills or important post, and don't let him in the living room; who knows what Gandalf might do if he's disturbed during 'Enterprise'.' The Twins saluted.

Frodo, dragging his little tartan shopping bag on wheels (a birthday present from Merry and Pippin, who'd bought it for the sole purpose of mocking Frodo, and were slightly nonplussed when he thanked them profusely and started using it), made for the shops. Little did he know what chaos was to ensue while he was gone.

xxx

Gimli woke up. The sun was shining, the birds were giving melodic alarm calls, and there was a noise somewhat akin to a herd of stampeding mûmakil emanating from Downstairs. _Sounds like the Hobbits at breakfast,_ he thought blearily, and then did a double-take. He wasn't supposed to be awake; he had work tonight . . .

'Nightshift!' he roared, in order to give the other Fellowship members a hint, and then buried his head under the pillow in the hopes that it would make the sounds go away. He heard a muffled cry of 'Ai Elbereth, we forgot Gimli!' and then found himself being dragged out of bed.

'Wha'?' he managed, before extricating his feet from the puddle of blankets now littering the floor, and running to keep up with the Twins. 'What's the matter?' he tried again.

'Like, Legolas's stalkers are here. They're here,' said one Twin in an unusually panicked voice. 'They've come,' he added just as the sound of running feet became louder, and a group of . . . girls turned the corner. Gimli eyed them, and then looked up at the Elf's suddenly tense face. Just beyond him he could see the stairs to the loft.

The stalkers paused for a moment, apparently scenting the air. Gimli had sudden and violent Warg flashbacks.

Then the boldest of them made a move, and suddenly Fellowship instincts long-buried resurfaced. Gimli stepped defensively in front of whichever Twin had routed him out of bed, and the other Twin appeared out of Aragorn's bedroom, brandishing a slightly dented sword.

And then the doorbell rang. The stalkers' heads all turned at the same time.

'Lars!' one of them squealed, and they all ran down the stairs.

'After them!' yelled the Twin with the sword (Gimli suspected it was Elrohir), and promptly leapt upon the banister and proceeded to slide down it yelling Elvish warcries and ululating fiercely, crushing fangirlish fingers in the process. Fortunately he reached the door first, and threw it open to reveal a very surprised Aragorn and Legolas, returned from their protest.

'Elro-' was as far as Legolas got before being pushed violently out of the doorway. Elrohir slammed the door behind him and dragged the other Elf and Aragorn round the back of the house and behind a convenient bush.

'Elrohir, what in Varda's name-'

'Like, ssssh, they'll hear you,' hissed Elrohir from the depths of the shrubbery. On cue, piercing female voices floated through the air.

'I think they went this way!'

'Pssst!' A whisper could be heard by the two Elven members of the party. Legolas looked up, only to spy Elladan leaning out of the skylight in the roof. 'Like, up here!'

'What?'

'They've all gone outside to look for you in the street! If you can get to the back door, you can get back in!'

'Who are 'they' precisely?' asked Legolas, although he had a horrible suspicion he already knew.

'Um, the girls who live over there-' Elrohir pointed, '-and over there-' he pointed in a different direction, '-and their friends.'

'And why are they in my house?'

'Like, they're not in the house any more, so why don't we go back inside-'

'I'll take point.' Aragorn had taken precisely six point two seconds to switch into Ranger mode, and was now Lurking under a tree, looking around shiftily. As Legolas slowly raised a single toe from the rather squelchy ground, a piercing scream indicated that a ravenous teen had spotted her prey. In a flurry of leaves, and a not inconsequential amount of mud, Elves and Man ran for the back door. Fortunately for them, it wasn't locked. Less fortunately, Gimli was on the other side, having come to check on the safety of his comrades, and the ensuing tangle of limbs took Elladan (who'd come down from the loft to aid in the mission) several minutes to completely fail to unravel. In the end the Twins actually carried Legolas (who had passed out from fright several seconds before reaching the back door and had kept running entirely on autopilot), Aragorn and Gimli up to the loft, because actually separating the heap of flesh into its constituent parts would have taken too long, and the Twins were the only ones with legs that still functioned without catching on other miscellaneous limbs.

Unfortunately, they left the back door open.

The house was overrun.

xxx

An emergency house meeting was called in the loft, it being (as judged by Aragorn) the most easily defensible part of the house.

Chairelf: Legolas Thranduilion, prince of Mirkwood and walking Fangirl magnet

Present: Aragorn son of Arathorn, Heir of Isildur;

Elladan and Elrohir, sons of Elrond;

Gimli son of Gloin, probably the only thing standing between Legolas, the Twins and death-by-stampede, literally;

Dave, lineage unknown, passed out in the corner.

Absent: Olorin/Mithrandir/Gandalf the Grey/White/Grubby/Sparkly, due to being downstairs watching

Channel 5;

Meriadoc Brandybuck, former Master of Buckland, and Peregrin Took, former Thain of the Shire (impeached), absent due to being at a protest. Quite what they were protesting is not known;

Samwise Gamgee, former Mayor of the Shire, absent due to being the only Fellowship member working (on a job he was being very reticent about) this Saturday;

Frodo Baggins, former Ringbearer, absent due to being out shopping and unaware of the current crisis situation.

Legolas thumped his fist on the floor to restore order. This resulted in a chorus of 'I think I heard something!'s from the crowd of stalkers downstairs, and the sound of footsteps in the hallway.

'I think we can leave aside the minutes of our last meeting-' he said in a whisper,

'Did we ever resolve the Paxman debate?' asked Gimli.

'No, he escaped, and Enterprise was on.'

'-and get straight to the 'what are we going to do about the stalker siege' topic,' finished Legolas.

Aragorn stood up to address the group in a kingly manner. 'As it stands, we have control over the loft, and technically the living room. They have the kitchen, bathroom and potentially the bedrooms.'

Legolas shuddered. Who knew what horrors they could perpetrate in his bedroom?

'How do we have the living room?'

'Gandalf's watching Channel 5 again, and I don't think the stalkers can stand the smell. Or the heavy breathing. Besides, anything female entering that room is in mortal peril.'

The mental images this comment conjured up silenced everyone. With a shudder, Aragorn continued. 'Now, we have several options,' he began. Legolas, recognising the beginnings of another 'heroic' episode, sat down on a box of miscellaneous weaponry and started working out how big his therapy bill would be, should the Legolusters™ ensnare him. He could feel another tension headache coming on, probably not helped by Aragorn's suggestion that they fight their way out and bury any corpses in the bomb-shelter-cum-pantry whose existence in the middle of the lawn was still a sore point with Sam. Aragorn was aware of Sam's displeasure, and was still trying to make good to a certain extent. When it suited him, that is.

'I suppose the nutrients would be useful for the grass… Sam would be pleased with that. How about we hide them in the compost heap?'

Legolas hung his head and prepared to accept his doom.

xxx

Gandalf was intrigued. The turpentine and meths had got his blood pumping, and Xena was being particularly enticing today. She was suitably sweaty and had just succeeded in ripping her leather… apparel when the chaos consuming the rest of the house was brought forcibly to his attention by the door being flung open. This, his ethanol addled brain suggested, had been immediately preceded by shrieks of 'He must be in here! It's the only room left!' and 'Dibs!'

Gandalf froze. Women . . . Women in his living room . . . He gibbered slightly, and then registered their apparent ages.

'What devilry is this?' he asked, in a suitably menacing tone, hampered only slightly by the slurred sibilants. 'You are meddling in the watching of Xena! Begone, foul shades!' With a collective whimper, the young ladies extricated themselves from Gandalf's home-made Den of Sin with admirable haste.

Gandalf considered finding Frodo, or perhaps just thumping on the ceiling with his staff and yelling 'biscuits!' until an unspecified Hobbit appeared, but then decided he'd really rather stay put. He settled back in the Chair, breath heavy and quite possibly toxic, and reached for the vadko as leather-clad bosoms heaved.

xxx

Merry stared out of the bus window and idly kicked his heels. Pippin, on the other side of the upper deck, scratched at the sore bit on his wrist where the handcuffs were beginning to chafe.

'D'you reckon they'll find us?'

'Nah. They'll be expectin' us to've legged it in a stolen car.'

'Whereas we are, in fact, fleeing the scene of a crime on a number forty seven bus.'

'It has the element o' surprise.'

'I still don't see why you had to kick that poor copper in the trousers.'

'He was askin' for it!' Pippin was feeling the righteous indignation of the unlawfully-arrested, or perhaps just the unlawful.

'By reading you your rights?'

'He didnae have to say it in that tone.'

'What tone?'

'All smug, like. He should've been more polite.'

'What, like you, you mean?' Merry considered some of the more 'colourful' phrases Pippin had directed at the unfortunate policeman, which we have sadly been unable to reproduce here due to our complete inability to understand Glaswegian, but may have involved reference to mothers, President Bush, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and some of the rather more insalubrious uses for a pork pie. Merry had been more than a little embarrassed; thus they were now sitting at opposite sides of the bus and pretending, in between bitching at each other, that neither of them knew the other.

'Don't see why the coppers were even there,' Merry said. 'It's not like anyone was planning to get violent.'

'It only got violent 'cause o' them anyway,' Pippin announced.

'How d'you figure that one out?'

Pippin, realising that he didn't have a leg to stand on in this case, given that the violence had kicked off right around the time when he tried to pull one of the female officers, decided to change the subject.

'How'm Ah gonna get these off?' He indicated the handcuffs. 'Ah won't be able to hold a pint without lookin' like a sissy.'

Merry had just realised something of rather more importance. They had left the special banner behind. In fact, if his memory of those last blurred moments before Pippin had yelled 'Run like buggery, Merry!' was anything to go by, they had left the banner on the roof of the police car. This would not have been a problem, except that they had recycled one of Frodo's best bedsheets to make it, and Frodo, conscientious househobbit that he was, was in the habit of stitching nametags onto everything he owned. 'Frodo Baggins' would be easy to trace. All the police would have to do would be to mention the name to a passing medical professional.

Merry considered the likelihood of Pippin being allowed onto a plane to Australia while wearing handcuffs.

'Ah'm booooored. Can we go to the pub?'

Merry considered how the handcuffs might hinder Pippin in trying to catch him if he got off the bus right now and ran as fast as he possibly could.

xxx

'Lars!'

'Come out, come out and play!'

'It's not working.'

'I know it's not! Give me time to think!'

The Legolusters™ had hit a snag. The picking of the locks had gone off without a hitch, as had the conquering of the kitchen, due to Frodo's disappearance to the local supermarket. The living room had been declared out-of-bounds by all those who wished to see their fourteenth birthday with innocence and vital signs intact. The cupboard under the stairs had been thoroughly examined, but had turned up nothing of interest save for a doggy bowl with the word 'Paxman' inscribed around the rim. The stairs beckoned.

'He's not outside. We've checked.'

'He must be up there somewhere.'

'Okay. We go up together. I'll take the first bedroom. You take the second, you take the third, you two take the fourth and you take the fifth. Alice, you're on bathroom duty-'

'Aww, he's not going to be in the bathroom-'

'-With hair like that?'

'Can't I take the bathroom?'

'Five bedrooms? We're not in Walford, you know.'

'They must have five, unless…'

'No! They can't be sharing…Lars isn't gay,' the unnamed fangirl said, her tone a mixture of defiance and prayer.

The fangirls' plotting was interrupted by a 'Silence! For the Buffmeister is here, and ye shall worship her!' from the living room, coupled with the sounds of a bottle being opened and a large quantity of pure alcohol being poured down one Istari throat.

With a collective grimace of horror, the stalkers headed for the stairs.

xxx

'Now, if Ah still had the moped, then we wouldnae be in this position.'

'If you still had t'moped, how would you drive it with handcuffs on?'

'Shut up.'

'Wanker.'

'No' with these handcuffs on, Ah'm not.'

'And you're crap at levity.'

Pippin rolled his eyes. There was no talking to Merry when he was in one of his moods. And so the two hobbits, jackets rolled up and hung over their respective handcuffs in order to disguise them, trudged home from the bus-stop in silence. Relative silence, at least.

'How are we goin' to get these cuffs off?'

'Does Gimli still have t'cuffs he got free with his last order of chainmail underpants? 'Cause someone told me that all handcuffs have the same key.'

'Ah don't think those handcuffs have much in common wi' these ones. Did you even see them?'

'Not as such, no-'

'They were pink. An' fluffy.'

'Ah.'

A pause, and then;

'We are really, really screwed.'

'Ah know. Shut up abou' it, would you?'

'I know! Aragorn has Numenorian strength! He can break t'cuffs open!'

'More likely to break our wrists in the process.'

'True.'

'And Sam'll be at work . . . so we've only got one choice-'

'No Pippin, don't even say it-'

'We're goin' to have to let Aragorn saw them off, aren't we?'

Merry hung his head and sighed heavily.

'Well how bad could it be?'

'Shut up. I want to enjoy my remaining time with my hands intact.'

'He's no' that incompetent-'

'Pippin. Fallout Shelter. Feet and inches, confusion between. That's all I'm saying.'

For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the wind. Then shrieks, giggles, and shouts of 'coo-ee!' manifested themselves, about the time that the Fellowship house reared above the horizon. Merry and Pippin looked at each other, then back at the house, just as someone screeched 'Lars! Oh Laaaaaaars!'

'Bugger.'

xxx

There was a girl sitting on the front doorstep. Merry and Pippin looked at one another. Merry shrugged, but Pippin never turned down a challenge, even while handcuffed. The girl's age wasn't a problem; he could easily pass for a twelve year old. Merry leaned against a tree and watched with interest.

Seventeen seconds later, the girl screamed, and ran into the house, shrieking like a banshee. Frantic questioning could be heard, followed by doors slamming. Pippin looked at Merry.

'Was it somethin' Ah said?'

Without bothering to reply, Merry wandered into the house. It seemed oddly empty, although a quick sniff in the region of the living room door indicated Gandalf was in there. Aragorn and Legolas presumably weren't home yet. He wandered into the kitchen, and headed for the fridge.

'What was she doin' on our doorstep, anyway?' Pippin wondered. 'And she ran upstairs. D'you think she's here for one of Frodo's meetings?'

'Don't suppose so,' Merry muttered, somewhat preoccupied with the realisation that making a five-tiered ham, cheese, Branston pickle, peanut butter and Mars bar sandwich while wearing handcuffs was not going to work. 'She were a bit young. Besides, Frodo's lasses tend to be a bit more… floral.'

'Ah'm goin' to see what's goin' on.'

Merry followed, his stomach rumbling.

As they climbed the stairs, eyes were visible, peering through gaps round the bedroom doors. As Pippin came into view, every single door slammed. He thought he heard someone reciting the Lord's Prayer. From above came the sounds of frantic whispering, and the loft hatch opened.

'Pssst!'

'Elladan? What're you doin' in our loft?' An identical Elvish face appeared beside the first.

'Dude, you guys look really short from up here!'

'Dude, they always look short.'

'Yeah, but now they're, like, shorter than usual-'

The Twins' faces disappeared suddenly, and Aragorn came into view.

'Merry! Pippin!' he hissed. 'Are you alright?'

''Cept for these handc-' Merry quickly shushed Pippin with a swift elbow to the ribs.

'We're fine. Who're all these girlies?'

'Did they get you? Are all your bits intact?'

Merry and Pippin shared a glance. Clearly, Aragorn had finally done what he had been threatening to do ever since the advent of sliced bread (which apparently lacked moral fibre and backbone, and was the reason the country was going to the dogs), and had lost his final marble. Nevertheless, they clambered up the ladder. There could be some special lembas up there, after all.

xxx

'Have they gone?'

'I don't know, I can't hear anything.'

Curled up on the bed, the unfortunate victim of Pippin's advances rocked to and fro, clearly deeply traumatised. She was seriously considering becoming a lesbian. It meant that she wouldn't be able to enjoy Lars when they finally found him, but if it prevented anything like THAT from ever happening again, it would be worth it.

'What _was_ that thing?'

'I'm not sure. And I think I'd rather not know.'

'I think it's clear. Come on, let's try downstairs again.'

'Do you think I'd suit a shaved head?'

xxx

Merry and Pippin had been appraised of the situation, and were now sitting on cardboard boxes, looking surprisingly unperturbed by the siege. This may have been because Elladan and Elrohir had in fact brought the special lembas to the loft when the siege began, and the Hobbits had already consumed the lot, even the green bits. Better still, Dave was still unconscious, and hadn't had chance to eat any of it. Stuffing their faces without revealing their handcuffs had been a little difficult, but they had tapped into their reserves of that special Hobbit resourcefulness that always manifested itself when food was in the offing, and had remarkably succeeded in keeping the morning's activities a secret. They were now completely incapable of speech, and were in any case far more interested in the dust motes floating around one another's heads than in the crisis.

'Dude! We have an idea!'

'What is it?' Legolas asked, with a weary sigh.

'We, like, steal one of the little dudes' hair-'

'-From their feet, 'cause it's stronger-'

'-Yeah, and we, like, climb out of the skylight-'

'-Taking care to stay low-'

'-Just in case scary dude-girls are watching-'

'-Then we go to that, like, wire thing…'

Merry was shocked out of his torpor by the threat to his precious foot hair. 'You mean the phone wire?' he asked, cautiously sliding his feet out of sight.

'Yeah, little dude, and we put the hair on it-'

'-And then we get some saucepans-'

'-And then we, like, put pegs on our noses-'

'-And go into, like, little dudes' room-'

Legolas stopped listening. It was a survival technique he had been forced to develop while living with the Fellowship, and it was solely the ability to actually turn his ears off that had allowed him to remain sane in recent years. It had the unfortunate side effect of giving him a glazed expression that surpassed even Merry's after an exceptionally large meal, but otherwise went unnoticed.

'-Dude, it'll go down in history!'

'It'll be, like, that siege, you know, with the, like, things, with the tails-'

'No! I'm sure there's something in some convention or other banning the use of socks as an offensive weapon…'

'Really?'

'If there isn't, there should be. Those two's socks are up there with nuclear warheads-'

Legolas tuned out once again, and began to mentally hyperventilate.

xxx

Some time later…

'So,' said Aragorn, 'We run down the stairs, Legolas excluded due to fears for his personal safety, and assess the situation. Should there be no immediate attack of hormonally charged teenage acne-ridden females, we make for the bathroom and prepare for stage two. Should we in fact become surrounded by the enemy, we make a last ditch stand on the upstairs landing, protecting Legolas with our lives if need be. Are we all agreed?'

'Yes!'

'Erm…'

'What?' Aragorn was growing a little tired of Merry and Pippin. They had thwarted every single one of his plans so far, even the one involving the handkerchiefs, the chimney stack and the Twins wearing antlers, and he really wished they'd bugger off back to their protest and leave the military strategy to those more accustomed to it.

'What if they're not only after Legolas?'

'What's stage two?'

Aragorn sighed, although he had to admit Pippin had, for the first time in approximately fifty seven years, made a valid point. There was a chance, admittedly small, that the deranged young ladies currently occupying the house were after some hot king-of-Gondor action. However, Aragorn was prepared for this eventuality, and had already donned trainers and a tracksuit (stored in the Loft several years previously in one of his 'we-must-prepare-for-our-impending-doom' episodes, and now smelling strongly of mothballs) to aid his speedy escape. Before he had chance to explain this cunning plot to Pippin, Legolas stirred.

'I'm just going out. I may be some time,' he said in a dead voice, and made for the hatch in the loft floor. Before he could make it, Aragorn leapt to his side and dragged him back.

'What do you think you're doing? Are you mad? They'll tear you limb from limb!'

'If I go, the rest of you may survive.' _And I'd be out of the Fellowship for good_, Legolas added mentally.

Aragorn was having none of this obvious attempt to sabotage his heroics.

'We are a Fellowship, we will live or die as one!' he cried, springing to his feet, grabbing a sword, cracking his head on the low ceiling and descending to a stunned crouch again, all in one gracefully executed movement. Legolas took advantage of the diversion this caused, and once again made for the hatch. The Hobbits were too busy laughing raucously to notice, but fortunately Gimli had been prepared for an attempt at Elvish sacrifice, and followed his doomed comrade. Aragorn, meanwhile, had spotted a metallic flash.

'Pippin, what's that around your wrists?'

'Um…'

xxx

Sam's biggest fan, who went by the name of Kirsten when she wasn't writing very bad Tenth Walker fanfics under the name of 'Silmarillienna', was not happy. Her sister kept making snide remarks, she had not received a suitably vast amount of praise for coming up with the plan that got them this close to Lars, and Sam apparently was not on the premises. To make matters worse, the noises and the curiously penetrative stench from the living room were causing her some distress, and she was developing an itchy rash where the old man's breath had come into contact with her arm. Resisting the urge to sniffle, the youngest of the stalkers sat on the bottom stair and contemplated going home to her mother and grassing Alice up.

The front door handle rattled.

The chain had been put on, to lessen the chances of parents or police scuppering Lars's kidnapping. The door opened slightly, and a voice called, 'Hello? Elladan? Elrohir? I brought your flour…' Fortunately the rabid fangirls upstairs were too busy being noisily destructive in the only bedroom that was neither filled with paisley, chock-a-block with mechanical gubbins or entirely coated in raspberry jam, and didn't hear. Kirsten wandered into the kitchen moments before the back door opened and a towering mass of shopping bags entered.

'I've got the flour, but they were all out of vanilla essence. Apparently two 'short gentlemen' bought out the entire stock this morning,' said the bags.

'Um…'

The bags shifted, and a face appeared from behind a box of muesli. It looked deeply suspicious.

'Merry! Pippin! How many times do I have to tell you? Just because you found it in the park doesn't mean it's lost and in need of rehoming!'

'Um, no one found me…'

'Then what are you doing in my kitchen?'

'Um…well-'

Kirsten was interrupted by a dwarvish war cry from the direction of the stairs, and Legolas flung himself into the kitchen, slammed the door and leaned against it, panting heavily. He was missing several chunks of hair, and had numerous red and sticky-looking handprints about his person. He turned around, to see Frodo, arms folded around a vast quantity of groceries, eyebrow raised, and one of the nameless terrors of his darkest nightmares, looking upset. He shrieked, and dived into a cupboard. Whimpers and gibbering could be heard.

Frodo put the kettle on. It looked like it was going to be a long day.

'Cup of tea?' he asked the quivering cupboard, glad that for once it wasn't him hiding amongst the crockery.

'Yes please,' said the cupboard in sepulchral tones. 'But not the Moroccan Mint,' it added.

'Tippy Assam?'

'That'll do.'

'Are you sure you wouldn't like to come out of that cupboard and tell me what the matter is?'

'Just leave me to die, Frodo. But give me my tea first.'

Frodo opened the door of the cupboard and placed the cup of tea in Legolas's hand.

'So, what are all these girls doing in the house? And what does Gandalf have to do with it? Are we going to have to pay compensation again?'

'They're my stalkers, I don't know how they got in, and Gandalf has nothing to do with it,' said Legolas-in-the-cupboard. 'Don't leave the kitchen. Those girls are dynamite.'

'I take it Aragorn is home. Are Merry and Pippin back yet?'

''es.' There was the suspicion of a sniffle from inside the cupboard.

'Legolas, are you crying?'

'N-no.'

'Sorry. Are your eyes watering? It's very dusty in that cupboard,' said Frodo sympathetically. 'You really should come out.'

'If I come out then they'll get me.'

Frodo was almost on the point of calling Julie, but decided perhaps he'd better first deal with the young lady now sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cup of tea and looking as though the world was about to end. This, it occurred to Frodo, was not quite in keeping with the usual behaviour of Legolas's myriad admirers. Under normal circumstances, any teenage girl within thirty feet of the Elf would pay no heed to the prospect of sexual assault charges, cupboard or no cupboard.

'What's wrong?' he tried. There was no response, save for a hearty sniff and the mumbled sounds of an Elf praying to be allowed to shuffle off the mortal coil with his dignity and flesh intact.

After several moments' wringing his hands together helplessly, Frodo realised he had, over the past six thousand years, accrued absolutely no experience in the field of Talking To Women. At least, not to women with carnal relations aforethought; the ladies from the Women's Institute were unlikely to even consider breaking into an innocent Elf's house and forcing him to hide in a sideboard. In the absence of any better ideas, Frodo reverted to the tried and tested Forcing-Merry-and-Pippin-to-Own-Up voice.

'How did you get in?'

'Picked the lock.'

'Why did you pick the lock?'

'They wanted Lars's body.' The girl seemed a little surprised to be admitting this, but a hormonal not-quite-teenage girl was no match for the power of the Voice. Ignoring the sudden intake of breath and increased gibberish from the cupboard, Frodo continued;

'What did you want?'

'Mumblemumble.' Clearly some information was precious enough to allow resistance.

'I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that,' said Frodo, subtly shifting from Own-Up-Now to Don't-Make-Me-Have-To-Get-The-Rolling-Pin.

From the depths of the cupboard a quavering voice said, 'She said 'Sam'.'

'He's not here,' said Frodo, 'he's still at work, and he's not very good at fighting off crazed hordes of psychopaths, anyway. Speaking of which, where have Aragorn and Gimli got to?'

'Gimli . . . ' Legolas muttered. 'Dearest of friends . . . I'll miss him . . .'

'What? Do you mean to tell me that they got Gimli? And you left him out there with them, and ran and hid in a cupboard?'

'. . . Yes . . . But I don't think they'll have . . . tainted him. He's probably just been slowly crushed to death.'

'And Aragorn?'

'Defending the other side of the door.'

Frodo, eyebrow raised so high it was beginning to ache, poured another cup of tea and opened the kitchen door. Aragorn appeared to be doing well, and had seemingly remembered not to actually kill anyone. That was a relief, at least; it had taken Legolas and Frodo several years in the 1920s to make him understand that you couldn't just chop people's heads off any more, or even just their limbs, because things were Civilised now, and people would Talk. Aragorn had insisted for some months that people were supposed to Talk, and that putting the fear of the devil into people was a tried and tested method of keeping them under control, but the incident with the nutcrackers and the hatpin had set him straight. It was nice to know their efforts hadn't gone to waste.

'Tea, Aragorn?' Frodo asked, rather more loudly than usual in order to be heard over the chanting from the Legolusters™.

'What do we want? Lars's naked body!'

'When do we want it? Now!'

In the depths of the cupboard, Legolas curled into a tighter ball and made a noise like a drowning kitten.

xxx

'He's never going to, dude.'

'Little dude won't like it.'

'What won't I like?'

'Not you, little dude. Frodo-dude.'

'What won't he like?'

Elladan gave up on trying to explain the subtleties of Frodo's views on full frontal nudity in the kitchen to Merry, and threw a T-shirt at Dave. Elrohir stopped what he was doing, and looked over.

Dave woke slowly, his eyelids unused to opening, and scratched an intimate area.

'Woss goin' on? Why'm up here?'

'We're being, like, besieged, dude.'

'Yeah, and you're, like, naked-'

'-And it's, like, December-'

'-And you'll get, like, hypothermia-'

'-Or something worse-'

'TB?' Merry interjected. But sadly Pippin had not yet relinquished the joys of dust-mote watching, and didn't join in the game of Name-That-Horribly-Disfiguring-Disease.

'-And we need to, like, escape-'

'-By abseiling-'

'-Right, and if Frodo sticks his head out the kitchen window when you're, like, naked-'

'-And, like, abseiling down the side of his house-'

'-He'll probably kill us. Even if we are trying to rescue him.'

'We don't want to die before Christmas.' The Twins once again turned on the 'Last Puppy In The Shop' expression. Dave was in fact immune to this expression, all of his vaguely maternal instincts having been fused into a solid mass of rotting brain cells several years previously, along with his pride, coherency and motor control, but he struggled into the t-shirt and looked expectantly at the Twins, awaiting further instruction.

'So, we're abseiling?'

'Yeah,' said a Twin. The other was once again engrossed in his work.

'When?'

'We have to finish this first. Then we search all the boxes for string-'

'-Which may take a while-' the other Twin noted, glancing round at the festering mounds of rotting cardboard boxes.

'-And then we turn it into rope. Ever made rope before?'

Dave shook his head. 'Made rice before,' he offered.

'No, dude, it'd never support our weight-'

'-And it's not really long enough.'

During this exchange, Merry had become slowly aware of something subtly wrong in the room. He looked around, trying to ascertain the source of the wrongness, and spotted a box that appeared to be filled, conveniently enough, with rope. Probably Sam's, he suspected. He'd always been rather suspicious of Sam's relationship with rope, and often found coils of the stuff in unexpected places, such as the back of the freezer. Mutely, he pointed at the box.

'Dude!'

'Excellent!'

'Now we don't need string!'

'And we're finished, so let's go!'

'What 'bout dread-dude?' asked Dave.

'We'll, like, carry him-'

'-Like this-' Elrohir picked up Pippin, and draped his arms, still handcuffed together, around his neck. Pippin hung there limply. It was entirely possible that he had scoffed rather more than his fair share of the special lembas, Merry thought. The Twins opened the skylight and climbed onto the roof. Dave blinked a lot, unused to the sunlight, and as the Twins began tying lengths of rope around the chimney stack, Merry finally realised what was different.

The Twins had put Pippin's hair in dreadlocks.

Before he had chance to comment, or wonder how they had achieved this so quickly, first one and then the other swung off the roof, rope in hand. Dave, after a moment's thought, followed. Merry considered the situation, and decided to chance it on the stairs.

xxx

A curiously rhythmic sound (minds out of the gutters everyone, this is a clean, Christmassy episode, for the time being at least) coming from outside made Frodo look up from his mixing bowl. He'd been making scones in order to try and calm down. Even though the lusters weren't his lusters, the stress was getting to him. And Sam hadn't come home yet. This was worrying.

Through centuries of practice, ever since they'd invented the grindstone, in fact, Frodo could make scones by memory alone (a mystical ability), and even as he threw in some extra flour (make the most of it before the Twins get to it again) and dumped the bowl's contents on his benchtop ready to roll out, he was listening intently and trying to peer out of his net curtains. He wondered if maybe Next-Door had actually gone ahead and had piles laid down for the new decking they kept talking about. A piledriver would make that sort of noise, Frodo reasoned, although surely it would be louder if it were next door?

Oh well. He bent down to grab the rolling-pin from the cupboard under the sink.

'Hadooooo iiiiii phiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!'

'Dude, that doesn't sound riiiiiiiiiight!'

CRASH

Frodo, on hearing the first phrase, had curled up into a tight little ball, the better to stay out of the way of the Elven SWAT team that appeared to be climbing through his window.

xxx

It was six o clock in the evening, and the siege was getting impractical. In the cupboard under the stairs, the fangirls were having a conference.

'What are we going to tell our parents?'

'Well, you can tell them you're staying at Alice's house, and Alice, you say you're at Shirley's, and Shirley, you're staying with Rosie-'

'One problem though.'

'What?'

'What do we do with Alice's sister?'

'Where is Alice's sister? And what do you mean, what do we do with her?'

'I mean, she can't be staying with Alice; World War Three would break out, and their parents know it. But there aren't any of her friends she can swap excuses with here.'

'Bugger.'

'_Just wait for it to stop!'_

'_Aww, is widdle baby Boromir getting sea-sick?'_

'_Shut up you sadistic Rohirric bastard! Oooh my stomach.'_

A male laugh issued from thin air.

The lusters looked at each other.

Suddenly, what could only be described as a door opened in the middle of the cupboard, and three large, hairy men emerged and looked around.

'Bit dark in here.'

'Bit cramped too.'

'Frodo?'

'That's not Frodo. It's in a dress,'

'Last time I saw Frodo he was in a dress,'

'Faramir, last time you saw Frodo it was the Annual Gondorian Drag Night, and he was carried shoulder-high around the Third Circle for his rendition of 'The Road Goes Ever On and On', the adult version.'

'He was still in a dress. And he's about that height. And has the right colour hair and eyes.'

Faramir bent down to better address the quaking, four-foot high fangirl. 'Hello there Frodo, and how are you?'

'Not Frodo!' squeaked the luster.

'Hah! See, I was right!' said the heaviest-set of the three. 'And those eyes aren't the right colour. I was here last Christmas. I can remember better than both of you. Not that that's hard, your memories are shite. I mean, come on, 'the ring is evil', not even a long sentence is it?'

'Contacts!' the luster said, and signalled to the others that they should probably try to sneak out of the cupboard, because the two dark-haired men had started a slanging match with the blond one, and they looked distracted.

Before they got two feet, however, the three men stopped and glared at them.

'And where do you think you're going?'

'If you're not Frodo, you're definitely not Merry, Pippin or Sam. So who are you?'

'What business do children in dresses have in the Riddermark?'

Faramir and Boromir glared at Eomer. 'Sorry, got carried away.'

'We're, um, holy cow, look over there!' tried Shirley. Boromir raised a sardonic eyebrow, but other than that, she got no reaction to her amazingly cunning plot to distract the three men.

'FRODO!' bellowed Eomer at the top of his not-inconsiderably-loud voice. 'COME IN HERE A MINUTE, WOULD YOU?'

xxx

'I don't care! The essential decencies must be maintained!'

'Says the hobbit who hoovers naked! Dude, that sounded cool!'

'Hobbitwhohooversnaked! Hobbitwhohooversnaked! You're right, it does sound cool!'

'Shut up, the pair of you.' Frodo had the Don't-Make-Me-Have-To-Get-The-Rolling-Pin look on again. 'The point is that Dave has to wear underwear. I'm not having him wandering the house in nothing but a Jim Morrison t-shirt, which, I might add, has seen far better days. It's . . . unhygienic.'

'Dude, he used to do it all the time back in Cornwall.'

Frodo didn't even want to ask. 'The house is full of thirteen year old girls!'

'So, this is, like, the perfect way to get rid of them!'

'Yeah, and if we get him to sing, then they'll be really scared!'

'You should hear him do 'Light My Fire'! He did it in the shop one day when the police were there-'

'-I don't think he meant to-'

'-but it made the police leave really fast.'

'Yes, but do you want him to get arrested for indecent exposure?'

'Like, I don't think he's ever been exposed decently.'

'You can be exposed decently? Is there a manual?'

'I mean, he'll get arrested for parading around naked.'

'Dude, he's not naked. He's got a t-shirt on.'

Frodo decided to give up before his head exploded. He therefore resorted to bribery, and put on a stern face. 'No more food until he gets some trousers on. And that's final.'

The Twins ran off to coerce their friend into trousers, and Frodo went to get a paracetamol.

Sams's little admirer was still in the kitchen. She seemed to have abandoned Legolas's stalkers in favour of sitting at the table, staring into the depths of her now presumably stone cold tea. Frodo bustled around her. In a way she reminded him a bit of Sandra.

'Scone?' he asked, proffering a plate of them.

At the prospect of food, Pippin stirred for the first time since Aragorn had smacked him upside the head and gone after Legolas.

'Sc… sc'n…' he managed. Frodo, being well-versed in the language of spaced out Hobbits, thrust an entire scone into Pippin's open mouth. Merry was also aware of the prospect of scones, thanks to his home-made-food-radar (capable of detecting freshly baked buns at a distance of a hundred feet), and chose that moment to saunter into the kitchen. He stopped dead under the power of Frodo's glare.

'I can't help but notice, Merry, that you and Pippin both appear to be wearing handcuffs. And not the kinky kind.'

'We found a sex shop that specialises in accuracy?'

'Why were you arrested, Merry?'

'It was Pippin's fault!'

'It always is.' Frodo sighed. 'Cup of tea?'

'Alright. Why is that cupboard making noises?'

'Legolas is in there. I don't suppose you've seen Gimli on your travels?'

'I think he's taken refuge in the living room.'

'Ai Elbereth, is it that bad out there?'

Merry shrugged. The ladies currently occupying most of the house had steered well clear of him on his journey down the stairs. News like Pippin spreads, and no-one wanted to take any chances. From the looks of things, they hadn't trusted Aragorn's highly dubious level of personal hygiene, and were trying to avoid him as well. If it weren't for the stubble, the kitchen would probably have already fallen. As it was, none of the girls dared go near the door. Quite why they seemed so desperate to get hold of Gimli remained a mystery best left unexplored.

The Twins came back into the room.

'Dude, there's one of them now!'

'Frodo-dude, like, stand still! We'll rescue you.'

'I am not in need of rescuing, thank you very much. Has Dave got some trousers on?'

'Like, yeah-'

'-but they're a bit short-'

'-I think he's got Pippin's boardshorts on.'

'Hey!' said Pippin, but he was too full of lembas, and was too, ahem, tied up (pardon the pun) to do anything about it.

'Like, they've got the Playboy bunny on them-'

'-but they're trousers.'

'I think he's passed out again, though.'

'Anyway, that's why we came here, to rescue you from the lusters!'

'She's not my luster-'

'Like, no. She's Mirkwood-dude's luster. They all are!'

'Actually, she fancies Sam-' began Frodo, before a voice assailed his ears.

'FRODO!' said the voice, which was suspiciously familiar. 'COME IN HERE A MINUTE, WOULD YOU?'

'Excuse me,' said Frodo frostily, and opened the door cautiously. The stalkers had moved on to greener pastures, it seemed. The voice, which was still bellowing, appeared to be coming from the cupboard under the stairs.

'Hello?' said Frodo, before opening the door.

'Frodo?' asked the voice. Recognition dawned.

'Eomer?'

'The very same. And Boromir and Faramir are here too.'

'What did you want to see me for?'

'There are all these small girls . . . I think they're girls, anyway, in here. What do we do with them?'

Frodo blanched. Legolas was still in the cupboard, Gimli was in the living room, facing goodness knows what horrors, Merry was in the kitchen with a large plate of scones and Pippin was unconscious. Frodo had no idea where Aragorn had got to, and Dave and the Twins could be quite literally anywhere. The forces of the Free Peoples were hopelessly scattered. The Dark, Evil Menace of the fangirls was in his understairs cupboard. However, Frodo did have at his disposal three large, strong men.

'Take them outside and lock them out.'

'No! Lars! Larslarslars!' shrieked one of the fangirls.

'Lars?' said Boromir. Realisation dawned. 'You mean you broke in to molest Lego- I mean, Lars?'

'What do we want? Lars' naked body! When do we want it? Now!' The chant was taken up, if a little half-heartedly. The upstairs fangirls, still laying siege to the loft, heard it, and took it as a signal to regroup. In a flash, Frodo found himself surrounded.

To be continued…

Trojie's A/N: We just couldn't face a Christmas without Fellowship-ly chaos. And I knew Bridget could write under all her sarky comments and constant litany of 'I don't write, I don't write.' Next part should be up by Christmas.

Bridget's A/N: Or more likely by Christmas Eve Eve, given that this only took three days to write. If it's terrible, blame Trojie – she made me do it.


	2. Part Two

The 'I Can't Face a Christmas Without A BagEnders Special'

PseudoBagEnders Christmas Special

'The Passage of the Fangirls'

Part Two

by Bridget and Trojie

Disclaimer; None of the characters herein are ours. The Fellowship, the Twins, Faramir and Eomer all belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave, Sandra, and the Legolusters are all from Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's slightly scary imaginations. The characterisation of the Tolkien characters is from LA and RD's BagEnders, which we are trying to emulate.

Kirsten is still ours, as for some reason no-one's decided to claim her. Dotsie and Sadie are of course property of Terry Pratchett, although their peacekeeping is a little less law-abiding in his world. Macbeth quotation owned by Shakespeare, although he's unlikely to sue us for breach of copyright. Complete bastardisation of Faramir's character inspired by Peter Jackson. We're very sorry for the implication that Boromir is harbouring all sorts of nasty urinogenital ailments.

Important Note; This is A Tribute. We're not LA and RD. We know this. We're not even trying to be their 'successors' or anything of that kidney. We're just pinching their characters/characterisations for a bit of fun. NOT that kind of fun, this is a clean episode.

Notes; Klinefelter's Syndrome is mentioned herein. This is a genetic disorder wherein males have 47 chromosomes, with the sex chromosomes XXY. A man/boy with Klinefelter's will display a positive chromatin pattern (that is, one X chromosome collapsed to form a Barr body, which is normally only exhibited by females), a narrow waist, breasts, and will most likely be sterile. Trojie puts away biology textbook

xxx

Aragorn heard the chanting from the depths of Merry and Pippin's bedroom, where, inspired by the Twins' bizarre plans, he was collecting ammunition of a socky nature.

'What do we want?'

'Lars's naked body!'

'When do we want it?'

'Now!'

Elrohir poked his head in from the landing. He looked panicked, and was piggy-backing Dave, who had passed out again, and was drooling on his shoulder.

'They've got Rohan Dude, Gondor Dude and Ithilililllien Elrohir had had quite a lot of lembas by this stage Dude downstairs! And Mirkwood Dude is right next door in the kitchen! Like, what do we do?'

Aragorn, unfazed by the apparent sudden appearance of extra people, hesitated not one whit. 'We will not abandon them to torment and death! Anduril, Anduril for Gondor!' And with that, he leapt into action, trailing Elves and insensible humans behind him.

'To me, Elrohir, Elladan, Dave! Be bloody, bold and resolute!' He hurled himself in the direction of the stairs, somehow managing to acquire a flaming torch in the process, and with a noise perhaps best described as 'Woooorrgh', he leapt over the banister, caught his foot in the railings, fell headlong into the ring of fangirls surrounding Frodo, singeing several of their number in the process, and collapsed.

The Twins watched Frodo's face with great interest as he tried to decide whether to thank Aragorn for the somewhat misguided rescue attempt, or bollock him for nearly setting fire to the carpet. Aragorn had managed to land on top of the flaming torch rather than Merry and Pippin's socks. Whether this was fortunate or not depends on your perspective. Frodo chose to simply roll his eyes as Aragorn groaned very softly and the aroma of singed hair filled the hallway.

Boromir, Faramir and Eomer chose this moment to attack. The fangirls, having rather more sense than they have yet been given credit for, reversed hurriedly, and the Rescue Party (Mk. II) fell on top of Aragorn in a rapidly revolving blur of fists and feet. They completely failed to hit any of the enemies, although Aragorn took a few well-timed kicks in the groin courtesy of Boromir (entirely accidental, we're sure).

After several moments, the total lack of pulverised enemies lying prone before them came to the attention of the brawling heap of bodies. They all looked up (except for Aragorn, who was in his own private little world of pain, and probably wouldn't be capable of anything for at least an hour), and espied Legolas's fans hastily retreating in the direction of the living room.

'Oi!' yelled Boromir.

'Rrrrraagghhh!' roared Eomer.

'Aaaaaiiieeee!' shrieked Aragorn.

'Huh?' said Faramir.

Frodo observed, mildly interested, as the Legolusters™ ran for their lives, a baying mob of Gondorian and Rohirric nobility at their heels. Then he stepped over the softly yelping Aragorn, and returned to the kitchen.

xxx

It was a scene that would not have looked out of place in a Monty Python film. The fangirls were all but screaming 'Run away! Run away!' Unfortunately for them, they ran away into the living room, where Gandalf still held court. Carried away by adrenaline, and their own momentum, they didn't all manage to stop in time.

'Laaaar- ooof,' was the general sound effect, as singed stalkers barrelled into the room and collided with Gandalf and the Chair, the former of whom did his damndest to ignore them.

The rashes started appearing almost instantaneously.

'What's that . . . smell?'

'Alice, I think it's you.'

'It's this . . . chair thing.' A delicate sniff, 'it smells awful. We should get out of here.'

There was a wail.

'What's the matter?'

'I touched . . . I touched the Chair!'

'Oh my god, look at her hands!'

'That looks like psoriasis. My uncle has that. I didn't think you could get it from chairs.'

There was an incoherent bubbling noise from the afflicted girl.

'Don't worry Susan, it'll be fine. Here, use my hanky. You can wipe it clean.'

Five minutes of scrubbing later…

'Wow, I didn't think cotton could draw blood.'

'It's not coming off!'

'No, but her skin is.'

'Susan, I think that's enough. You'll hurt yourself.'

'It's no use! Will this little hand ne'er be clean?'

xxx

Gimli, having sought sanctuary in the living room, peered out from behind the sofa, hoping, praying that they were gone. They weren't. The fangirls, capable of pinpointing a Y chromosome at a distance of three hundred metres, spotted him.

'It's the short guy! Lars's friend! He can lead us to him!'

'LARS IS NOT GAY!'

'He can have a friend without being gay, stupid bint.'

'Lars is MINE!' An avenging, ash-burnt Shirley went to throw herself across the room at the cowering Gimli, until a sudden sensation of . . . heat . . . became apparent. Something that looked like a glowing coal was still attached to the front of her top; the plastic-based fibre the garment was composed of had melted and effectively glued the ember to her clothing. Her shriek alerted Gandalf to their presence.

_Fire. Monsters_, his brain told him. And Gandalf had only one reaction to fire and monsters combined. Taking a deep breath and actually standing (gasp), he turned to face the fangirls.

'I am a servant of the secret fire!' he bellowed, 'And wielder of the Flame of Anor! The Dark Fire shall not avail you, Flame of Udûn!'

But before he could actually expel them from the house, which would be officially the first useful thing he had done for the Fellowship in over three centuries, Boromir screwed it up.

As Faramir and certainly Eomer would say; did you expect anything else?

As he came charging into the living room, yelling ancient Gondorian war-cries at the top of his voice, he made the mistake of attempting to maintain high speed on a carpet that had recently been used by Merry and Pippin as a table (the kitchen being considered too far away, and Chinese takeaway being considered too unhealthy for Frodo to know about). An overturned polystyrene tub of sweet-and-sour sauce made contact with his foot, and he careened across the room, landing on Gandalf.

It was difficult to say who was more surprised, or horrified.

xxx

By eight o clock that night, the fangirls had been evicted, via a combination of brute strength (Eomer and the three Gondorians forcibly dragging any too foolish to seek cover to the door), misdirection ('Hey Frodo, did you see where Leg- I mean, _Lars, _went?' 'Yes, I think I saw him going to the shops.') and threats to tell their parents when the above techniques failed. Injuries to Fellowship members had been limited, although Pippin's pride had been dented slightly when he had managed to clear the living room completely simply by entering and saying 'hello ladies'. It was now time, the Hobbits insisted, for tea.

Aragorn, however, was determined to have one last shot at proving his manliness (his groin having now stopped throbbing with excruciating pain every time he so much as breathed). And so it was decided, by a majority vote of six to three, that Merry and Pippin would be dealt with first, so that they would be 'suitably attired' for dinner, as Legolas put it. The Twins', Dave's and Gandalf's votes were vetoed, as no one wished to spend the night in a strip club or a gay bar ('Dude, it'll be, like, funny!').

And so the Fellowship convened around the kitchen table.

'Hacksaw!'

'Stat!' said Legolas, tossing it out from the cupboard. Don't ask why it was in the cupboard. Gimli was in the habit of storing miscellaneous tools all over the house, in case nuclear war ever did strike and he needed to build a new civilisation out of the materials to hand.

Merry, 'Peak Practice' addict, scowled. 'S'not fair, using ERisms against me.'

'You use them against us,' said Aragorn, readying the hacksaw against the chain linking the two cuffs. 'Action stations everyone!'

'Aargh!'

'Merry, if you stopped kicking then this would be easier.'

'If I stop kicking, then it'll be easier for you to chop me arm off!'

'I wouldn't be chopping your arm off if you weren't kicking!'

'Aragorn, I've seen you doing woodwork. All the kicking does is add an element of doubt as to whether it's only his hand you're amputating, or whether you're going for the whole arm,' said Legolas from the depths of his refuge. A roll of bandages flew out of the cupboard and bounced off Gimli's helmet. 'For Merry,' the Elf added. 'I expect he'll need them.'

xxx

Five minutes later . . .

Merry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and prayed to any gods he'd not yet managed to mortally offend.

'Are you sure it's meant to go that way up?'

'Should you be doing this on the kitchen table?'

'Is his face supposed to be that colour?'

The newly incarnated were trying to help, in the only way they knew how. It was high time the handcuffs came off, although Frodo had protested, given their usefulness in limiting the extent of mischief Merry and Pippin could get into, but he had been overruled, and Aragorn was now preparing to saw through the chain linking Merry's wrists together. Eomer and Faramir were offering 'helpful' advice, and Aragorn was rapidly losing his temper. Boromir's persistent leering was doing nothing to calm the imminent explosion.

'Yes, it is! And yes, I should! And no! It's not! Now will you please sod off and let me work?' He gesticulated wildly with the hacksaw, and Pippin, still be-dreaded, perched on the sideboard and awaiting his turn, ducked hurriedly. Gimli and Boromir decided that while discretion may be the better part of valour, having all four limbs intact was by far the best, and retreated to the safety of the doorway. Eomer and Faramir, however, were having none of Aragorn's attempt to assert his masculinity and incidentally his sovereignty.

'Why does this remind me of Eowyn?' Faramir wondered, prodding at the handcuffs.

'Because she used to chain you to trees when you were being pathetically annoying?'

'Ah, yes. Thank you so much for reminding me.'

Boromir snickered, albeit in a slightly worried way.

'Excuse me, but can you hurry it up a bit? This is not doin' anythin' to improve my mood.'

Aragorn bent over and began sawing.

'It's no good. Faramir, go and get me the chainsaw from the shed.'

'What!'

'Quiet, Merry, it's for your own good. Do you want full use of your hands or not?'

'You're not comin' anywhere near my hands with a bloody chainsaw!'

'Don't be silly, it's perfectly clean-'

'Sure, it is now!'

'Wwwwzzeeeeph,' went the chainsaw.

'Aargh!' went Merry.

'Help!' went Aragorn, trying valiantly to stop the chainsaw from removing any of Merry's wildly flailing limbs.

Eomer obliged, by standing behind Merry and holding the squirming Hobbit's hands firmly on the table.

'Not like that! Let me go! I'll scream rape!'

'No-one will hear you, little Hobbit… you're ours now…'

Amid the horrible flashbacks, Merry whimpered. The sound of the chainsaw filled his mind, along with desperate wondering about how the hell he was going to get through the rest of his immortality with two bleeding stumps in place of hands. He was interrupted from this reverie of fear by what was quite possibly the worst thing anyone had ever heard in such a situation, except perhaps 'whoops':

'Okay, someone go and get the axe.'

xxx

Some time later, the Fellowship sat around the kitchen table, discussing the day's events.

'So why were you being besieged by little girls?' Boromir asked. Somehow, he managed to make this seemingly innocent question sound incredibly perverted.

'They were after my body,' came a voice from the depths of the cupboard. Legolas was not taking any chances, and had decided to remain where he was for the foreseeable future, or at least until his plane ticket to Madagascar arrived.

'…Right. So why's this one still here?'

'She's in love with Sam.'

'…Riiiight.'

'Don't worry, I think she's harmless.'

'Are you sure? They can be pretty cunning at that age.'

There was a moan from the slightly burned and severely bloodied heap at the far end of the table. Aragorn was finally coming round. Merry shuffled his chair a little further away; Aragorn was not likely to look too kindly on the Hobbit when he remembered that, fearing for his safety, Merry had smartly bopped the maniac-inexpertly-wielding-a-chainsaw over the head with a frying pan held between his teeth (Fun Christmas Fact: Hobbits have amazing muscular control in their jaws). That in itself should not have sent Aragorn to sleep for so long, but the accumulated blood loss of the day's activities had taken its toll.

'Well she hasnae gone for me, an' Ah'm a Hobbit.'

'That's 'cause the one you went for's probably going to end up in an institution.' Merry had still not quite forgiven Pippin for getting them arrested, although he had yet to explain the details of their 'protest' to the others.

Aragorn shifted slightly, and moaned a little louder. Unfortunately, of the only people who might have cared, one was still in hiding and the other two were now up a tree in the back garden, 'just in case', although what they mostly appeared to be doing was attempting to shoot tin cans off Dave's head. As he was once again comatose, they had currently scored forty-seven out of forty-seven each, and the game looked set to continue for some time yet.

'It's no' my fault she doesnae know quality when she sees it.'

'S'not her fault you don't know sexual harassment when you're committin' it.'

'It wasnae sexual! Ah didnae even touch her!'

'Pippin, of the twenty-three women who've currently got restrainin' orders against you, how many did you actually get as far as touchin'?'

Pippin was not going to stand for this slur on his pulling power. He launched himself at Merry. The others took absolutely no notice.

'Do you think we should make him a cup of tea?'

'I vote for sending him to sleep again.'

'Shut up, Boromir, or I'll make you go and sit with Gandalf.' Suitably chastised, Boromir nibbled at the edge of his scone.

'What're these black bits? They look like dead flies.'

'They're raisins, and no, they're not poisonous. Be quiet.'

Aragorn moaned again, even more loudly. Legolas-in-the-cupboard appeared to notice at last:

'Aragorn? Are you alright?'

'I'm not sure… I have a large- ow! A very large bump on my head. And I seem to be bleeding…'

The cupboard door opened a tiny crack, and a single Elven eye could be seen peering out. Rummaging noises could be heard, and then a packet of Ibuprofen came sailing out of the cupboard and landed on the throbbing lump on Aragorn's forehead.

'Stop whingeing about it. At least they didn't pull out great chunks of your hair. This is going to take months to grow back, you know.'

Aragorn raised an eyebrow, and immediately lowered it again as the pain grew exponentially. 'They got your hair?'

'It was only a few strands. You'll be fine. Are you going to come out yet?'

'…I think I'm bleeding too, you know.'

Eomer, who had been listening to this exchange while watching the Hobbits' fight (which had now rolled under the table), wandered over to the cupboard, opened the door, grabbed hold of Legolas and yanked him out. Sure enough, blotches of red littered Legolas's clothes.

Eomer sniffed the blotches, then gingerly stuck his finger on one. He licked the glistening red gloop from his fingertip.

'It's jam,' he announced.

There was a 'thunk', and Merry emerged backwards from under the table. Or at least, he tried to. Pippin was attempting to stand up at the other side of the table, and it rapidly became apparent that they had somehow managed to attach their handcuffs together. They both fell over, and immediately began hurling abuse at one another.

Eomer, Legolas and Aragorn looked at one another. Eomer shrugged.

'You know, I'm sure that's physically impossible.'

'Why? Magicians do it all the time.'

'Yes, but Hobbits are distinctly unmagical. The closest those two get to conjuring is pulling a fake ID out of someone else's pocket.'

'If they got them stuck together, they must be able to get them apart.' Legolas seemed convinced of this, despite all evidence to the contrary, such as Pippin trying to punch Merry and realising that if he got the timing and the angle just right, he could make Merry punch himself in his own nose.

Frodo, meanwhile, had just remembered something.

'That's not raspberry jam, by any chance?' he asked Eomer.

'Not sure. The only jam flavours they had when I was alive all tasted the same. Like rotten fruit.'

Boromir and Faramir winced at the recollection. Visits to the Meduseld in their youth had always been irreparably tainted by Eowyn's home-made jam, which on a good day only clung onto the spoon for a few seconds.

'Merry…' said Frodo, in a menacing tone. But Merry was too busy trying not to punch himself to notice.

'It's probably better off if you just leave them to it,' Aragorn suggested.

'I'd rather like to know why Legolas is covered in jammy handprints and the two jars of raspberry jam I left in the cupboard last night have mysteriously vanished.'

'Yes, but of all the questions you've ever asked them, when have you ever liked the answer?'

xxx

Sam ambled down the street, idling counting the number of streetlights with blown bulbs, with thermos and industrial-sized lunchbox in hand. He was whistling. Life was grand, and he was looking forward to a sumptuous dinner, and by the smells emanating from the house as he walked up, he was not going to be disappointed.

Gimli was coming out of the garden gate, presumably on his way to work. As Sam acknowledged him with a nod, a thought occurred to him. Frodo's best dinners were usually preceded by some disaster. And so it was with trepidation that he entered the house.

A shriek of 'Sam!' alerted him to danger. But before he could escape, something emerged from the kitchen and enveloped him.

'Eeek! Choking!' he tried to protest, but the attacker (he suspected one of the offspring of Shelob by the way it was throttling him) paid no heed. Under the thundering of blood in his ears he could hear thudding noises, and then the light came back and he could breathe again.

'Little dude, are you ok?'

'Like, we thought you were a goner!'

The Twins tended to Sam, while in the background an argument was going on.

'I told you it was a mistake to let her stay!'

'I didn't think she'd actually stampede him! She seemed so nice, compared to the others!'

'Yes, but that's roughly what you said about Gollum, and where did that get you?'

Frodo curled his hand defensively around the place where his finger used to be. 'Fine. You were right, I was wrong. And if you'll excuse me, I have to go and cook.' The hobbit stormed off in high dudgeon.

Sam decided that it was probably better off all round if he just didn't ask.

xxx

'The forensic lot have looked at it, and they're sure that isn't human hair. Oh, one of them's seeing a medical pathologist-'

'Which one?'

'John.'

'Bugger. I was going to ask him out for a drink after the Christmas Do.'

'Anyway, he's going out with this medical pathologist, and he reckoned she almost had a coronary when he mentioned the name 'Frodo Baggins', so he suggested we ask at the hospital about him.'

'Well let's get onto it then. I for one would like to have Christmas at home, not at the station.'

'So would we all.'

'The thing that really puzzles me though, is the banner. I mean, why?'

'I know. She's got such silly hair.'

'I didn't think eight year olds were allowed to watch Star Trek anyway.'

xxx

Extra chairs had had to be set out so that the entire extended household could eat dinner together, rather than in shifts, as had been proposed by Aragorn. Due to Merry and Pippin being inextricably entwined (again, we remind you all; clean episode) they did in fact have to share a seat; Pippin, as the lighter of the two, was sitting on Merry's lap. Legolas, still protesting his ignoble removal from the sanctuary of the cupboard, was pointedly Not Talking to Eomer, and Faramir and Boromir had to be seated at completely different ends of the table to stop them from kicking each other in the shins. Once Frodo had everyone seated and not annoying anyone else too much, he started dishing up. Unfortunately, the resurrected members of the group were having trouble with the concept of 'vegetables'. Again.

'Faramir, do you want broccoflower?'

'Brocco-what?'

'What horse?' piped up a Twin from the other end of the table.

'Dude, is that horse?' said the other one. 'I'm not eating horse!'

'It's not horse,' said Legolas.

'He said 'rocco'.'

'And that, like, means 'horse'.'

'He said 'brocco', as in 'broccoflower.' Legolas paused. 'Frodo, what is broccoflower anyway?'

'It's a cross between cauliflower and broccoli,' said Frodo, snatching Faramir's wavering plate and plonking a portion of steamed broccoflower on it.

'I'm not eating that, even if it isn't horse,' said Boromir, eyeing his brother's plate warily from afar. 'Green means something's going off.'

'Boromir, it's not going off. Sometimes we eat vegetables that aren't boiled yellow.'

'We never ate vegetables boiled yellow.'

'No, you never ate vegetables full stop,' said Pippin.

'Neither did you,' said Sam. 'You were the only Hobbit in the Shire to get scurvy. Ever.'

'Ah were the only Hobbit in the Shire to do a lot o' things,' said Pippin proudly.

'Like making an arse of yerself in front of Elrond?' said Merry nastily, because he wasn't enjoying being sat on. Pippin shifted on his ample behind. Merry went cross-eyed.

'Frodo! He just farted on me!'

'Duck and cover!' The entire Fellowship dived beneath the table, the usual procedure when a Hobbit farted. The general idea was that since hot air floats, the farts would rise. This left Boromir, Faramir, Eomer, the Twins and Dave (who had been given a wing armchair to sit in in the hopes that it would prevent him from falling into anyone else's dinner should he pass out) looking very puzzled, before the smell hit them.

Underneath the table, Merry, in his panic to get low, had managed to land on top of Pippin, not surprisingly winding him quite badly. Aragorn had bumped his head again, and was leaning on Legolas's prone form and whimpering. And Frodo had found the crust of a mince pie from earlier, which reminded him that he'd not yet started on the final week's frantic baking for Christmas Day. That clinched things.

'Right, bed everyone!'

'What, Frodo? We've only just started dinner!'

'I don't care, you're all going to bed! Take your dinners with you. But you're all getting out of this kitchen!'

'Where's everyone staying?'

'Legolas, the Twins are in with you. Aragorn, Eomer and Faramir are in your room, Boromir is staying with Sam and I and Dave is with Merry and Pippin, because he's the only one who'll be able to withstand their room. Now out, the lot of you!'

Picking up their plates, the extended edition of the Fellowship trooped dutifully up to bed, and Frodo prepared for a mammoth all-night cooking session.

xxx

'Dude, what's this, like, springy thing?'

'It's a slinky, Aragorn gave me it for no ascertainable reason, are you going to shut up and go to sleep soon?'

'Dude, it moves!'

'Like, cool!'

The Twins swayed from side to side on the end of Legolas's bed, each holding one end of the bizarre metal contraption and following its movement. Legolas gritted his teeth.

'Hey Mirkwood-dude!'

He ignored them.

'Mirkwood-dude! Mirky-dude!'

Elrohir took up the chant.

'Mirkydudemirkydudemirkydude!'

'What?'

'Why are you so, like, grumpy?'

'I'm not grumpy.'

'You are.'

'You're, like, grumpier than dad-'

'-And that's saying a lot.'

'He always seems to be grumpy.'

'That's because he doesn't like you, and I'm NOT grumpy! Now will you let me sleep?'

'Is it because of the, like, crazy stalkers?'

'Yeah, 'cause if it is, we could, like, sing you a song-'

'-To soothe you and send you to sleep-'

'-And then you'll, like, stop shouting.'

Legolas stuck the pillow over his head and closed his eyes.

'At least you're not stuck in the Tent of Chastity any more-'

'-Yeah, that was, like, totally not cool-'

'-We still haven't learnt Braille!'

'Dude! Let's go learn Braille! Mirky-dude? Have you got any, like, books about Braille?'

Legolas decided to go and sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. It had been a long time since he'd gone to sleep standing up, and it wouldn't do to get out of practice.

As he left his bedroom, the Twins began to try to make up a language involving the movement of slinkies.

xxx

'My toes are cold.'

'Blame Faramir, he's the one hogging the blanket.'

'Faramir, stop hogging the blanket.'

'Piss'ff,' Faramir mumbled. This may have been a mistake.

Aragorn lay scrunched up in the middle of his bed, as a fist flew past his face and hit Faramir in the nose. Which began to bleed. He responded with a punch in the jaw, and was dealt a hearty kick in the kidneys in return. Eomer, standing on the bed, laughed at Faramir's shriek of pain, and then shrieked himself as the ex-Prince of Ithilien launched himself across the bed and into Eomer's knees. They toppled to the floor and began brawling in earnest, Faramir's overly-large nose dripping blood all over the floor.

Frodo wouldn't be very happy about that, Aragorn mused. That said, Frodo didn't have to try to sleep through this racket.

'Come back here, you coward! Turn and face the wrath of Gondor!'

'The wrath of Gondor is too slippery with blood to get a hold on. Anyway, anyone would think you enjoyed being beaten to a pulp.'

'In case you hadn't noticed, not a lot of beating-to-a-pulp is going on here! It looks more like retreat.'

'I'm regrouping! Fighting without being on a horse is foreign to me!'

'A good warrior is resourceful and inventive!'

'A good warrior is well-prepared!'

'So if you're so well-prepared, why don't you have this horse you seem to find necessary?'

'Thought I'd found one, but it turned out to be your wife.'

'She's your sister, you pillock, and she's going to be really pissed off you said that when we get back to the after-life.'

The alarm clock, thrown with some force, served only to enrage Eomer further. The scale model of a siege weapon, while causing a rather curiously-shaped bruise, did not deter Faramir.

'Gondor is victorious once more!'

'You were only victorious the first time because of my sister and some assorted Hobbits!'

'Are you forgetting the forces of Gondor?'

'Aragorn was the only one of the lot of you who was any use, and look at him now!'

Aragorn decided to ignore that comment, because protesting it would only prolong the argument.

'Oh, and you were really useful! You were late!'

'At least I was there for more than five minutes!'

'There were extenuating circumstances!'

'Like being knocked silly by a bunch of orcs?'

'Like being fevered and unconscious?-'

'Like being burnt alive by your own father!'

'-at least I wasn't banished by my insane old uncle!' Faramir shouted in the middle of Eomer's retort, leading them both to bellow 'He was possessed!' simultaneously.

Aragorn gave up. Snatching the forgotten blanket off the bed, he left the room. Frodo and Sam's room was out of the question, as they had been unprepared for Boromir's arrival and anti-snoring measures had not been taken. Gimli's room was undoubtedly locked, and Merry and Pippin's room was simply not an option.

Aragorn decided to go to sleep in the bathtub.

xxx

Frodo was putting the finishing touches on a magnificent marzipanned fruitcake at five-thirty in the morning when he heard a screech from upstairs, followed by a thud and some muffled cursing. Moments later, Sam strolled into the kitchen, looking surprisingly cheerful for someone who had been mid-way through relieving his bladder when a grunting snore had alerted him to the presence of an unwashed, slightly bloodstained man in the empty bathtub.

'Morning Frodo.'

'Morning Sam. Sleep well?'

'Fine thanks. Have you been up all night?'

'Um, yes?'

'Don't overdo it,' warned Sam, filling his thermos with hot water and grabbing a few teabags.

Frodo registered that something was amiss.

'Sam, it's only a couple of days before Christmas, shouldn't you be off work by now?'

'Oh, I am off work.'

'So where are you going at five-thirty in the morning?'

'Oh, just, um, somewhere,' said Sam. 'Bye then,' he added, and positively skipped out the door. Frodo shook his head and pulled out a new bag of white icing.

xxx

'Sadie, we've got a lead on those kids with the banner. One of the psychologists at the hospital gave us an address. But he says he thinks they might have moved since then.'

'Ring round the local real estate companies, then.'

'Rightio.' Dotsie picked up the phone.

xxx

The Twins tumbled into the kitchen, laughing merrily. Frodo half-turned from his latest batch of mince pies.

'Why are you two so cheerful this morning?'

In answer, the Twins produced twisted coils of metal from behind their backs, and began throwing them about the kitchen and themselves. Their complicated dance was met with a bemused stare from Frodo.

Elladan bounced his slinky off the top of Elrohir's head, and Elrohir made his bounce up and down. Had Frodo been able to speak Slinkese, this would have translated as something like:

'Like, dude!'

'We can talk with slinkies!'

'Aren't they, like, cool?'

'Can we have some mince pies?'

Alas that he did not, and so this witty repartee was entirely lost on him. He put the kettle on, trying not wonder about what the hell the Twins thought they were doing, as enquiries in this area in the past had only ever further confused matters. At least they were being quiet, and the noise of the slinkies shunting to and fro as the Twins began to juggle with them was rather relaxing.

As the tea brewed, Frodo fell asleep over the table, occasionally twitching slightly.

xxx

It was Christmas Eve, and Frodo's cooking had gone critical. As Sam was still mysteriously absent, the Twins had been roped in as assistant chefs and fetchers-of-things-in-high-places. Frodo had vowed that next time they moved all cupboards would be at Hobbit-level. Merry and Pippin had been locked in the bomb shelter with a pile of dirty magazines, although as they were still handcuffed together this might prove to be a curse rather than a blessing. Aragorn, Legolas, and the other Christmas guests, except of course Dave (who wasn't allowed out in case the neighbours complained), had been unceremoniously thrown out of the house, and told in no uncertain terms that doom would await them should they return before 10pm.

It was decided that the pub was the best option. Legolas protested, but as his companions were all big, strong men, it was a simple matter to pick him up by the elbows and carry him there. Once seated and nursing a fruit juice, he settled down somewhat.

It was an indicator of how shaken he was, not just by recent events but also by the prospect of so many large and hairy men in his house, that his Elven tastebuds completely failed to recognise the curious tang in the juice as vodka.

Eomer was intrigued by the pool table.

'What is it?'

'It's a game,' Aragorn told him. 'You hit balls with this stick, and you have to get them into the holes.'

Eomer crossed his legs suddenly.

'No, not those balls, the red and yellow ones.'

This time it was Boromir who crossed his legs.

'Looks dangerous.'

'It's not, look, I'll show you.'

Faramir sat down with Legolas, and commenced bitching about the beer. This, he had discovered, was a good way of passing the time in the mortal realm, as there was an awful lot of bitching to be done.

'S'not like the good old stuff. That was real ale. It put hairs on your chest.'

'Faramir, the stuff you drank used to burn them off.'

'It was a man's drink, all right.'

'It was like drinking bread.'

'Good for you.'

'Mouldy bread. And it didn't even work.'

'Didn't work? Weren't you there when we had that party to celebrate… something. That guy from the place. You know when I mean. With the, like, sparkly things.'

'Elrohir?' Legolas asked suspiciously. He could only think of two people who mangled poor, defenceless sentences like that. He surreptitiously checked for pointy ears.

'No, I'm Faramir. Elrohir's less hairy, and there's two of him.'

'Just checking.'

'Anyway, I don't remember what it was about. Because the stuff works! Gets you drunk as a skunk and singing songs about hairy women.'

'And wearing dresses, in the Hobbits' cases.'

'Well, they're a special case.'

'It never got me drunk.'

Faramir gave Legolas a Look. 'I was watching that time when my brother got stuck in your body, you know.'

Legolas sipped his juice, and didn't respond. There was a yelp from the pool table. Given how many times Aragorn had made such a sound over the past few days, neither Man nor Elf took any notice of the fact that Eomer had hit the white ball so hard it had smacked Aragorn in the mouth. The ex-King of Gondor's head had been hit so many times now that it was in effect one giant bump, and every square inch of it was fully dosed up on painkillers. They didn't seem to be helping much, and now, against all reason, his teeth ached.

'Speaking of Boromir, where is he?'

'Talking to the serving wench.' Boromir was, indeed, at the bar, leching at the middle-aged, frumpy, cardigan-clad barmaid, who was desperately trying to ignore him.

'She's not a serving wench. She's a barmaid. People tend to get annoyed if you refer to them as wenches these days.' _Especially if they're men_, Legolas added mentally, remembering the incident involving Pippin and that poor lad with Klinefelter's Syndrome that had got them banned from the last pub they'd frequented.

Somewhere in the background, Aragorn and Eomer had begun to sing. Legolas sighed, recognising the onset of disaster. It was the song about the Maid from Ithilien. Faramir groaned, and tried to beat himself to death with an ashtray. Unfortunately, this drew attention to him, and the next thing he knew he had been hoisted off his stool and plonked on a table, flanked by Aragorn and Eomer. As they were both still singing valiantly, the subsequent argument was very . . . melodic. And interspersed with interesting lyrics.

'Let me down!' he hissed, desperately trying to fight his way out of the press of flesh.

' . . . sweet laaaady! _Not a chance!_'

' . . . her gaaaaarter! _Do the actions!_'

'No!'

' . . . amidst the simbelmyyyynnë! _You're the only one who knows them properly!_'

Legolas, highly amused by these proceedings, shouted up at the warring trio:

'It's no good! Try another song!'

Aragorn, having obviously spent far too much time around Pippin, knew exactly which one to sing.

'But the hedgehog-' he carolled, '-can never be buggered at all!'

It was at this point that Faramir thumped Eomer over the head with an abandoned pool cue, and leapt off the table. Onto Boromir.

As the apparent instigator of the advanced state of war that immediately erupted, Legolas felt that this might be a good time to beat a stealthy retreat and see if he could still blend into plaid wallpaper. Especially because Faramir and Boromir were now destroying the furnishings. Including the pool table.

xxx

Frodo, in desperation, had had to purchase two turkeys this year. There was no way he could feed a household of fourteen on one turkey when four of them were Hobbits and at least three others would almost certainly have drug-induced munchies. By various underground methods he had contacted his supplier, and money had changed hands in dark rooms and smoky bars, and as a result two turkeys were now lying on the kitchen bench, minus their various internal organs, but still perhaps the best evidence yet that birds and dinosaurs are related.

The sheer size of them had prompted Elladan and Elrohir to switch back to a verbal language, just to express their amazement.

'Dude, where did you get them?'

'Can you pass me the sage please, Elrohir?' said Frodo, carefully ignoring that question. He had no wish to reveal his sources.

As Elrohir complied, there came a knock at the door.

'Get that would you please, Elladan? Before Dave wakes up?'

Elladan rushed for the front door, throwing it open.

'Like, Merry Christmas! Oh no . . . '

'Um, Merry Christmas?' said a familiar voice.

'Is that you Sandra?' called Frodo from the depths of the first turkey. 'Come in!'

Elladan, looking pale, traipsed back into the kitchen, followed by Sandra and . . . two girls.

'Put the kettle on, one of you,' said Frodo, who still hadn't managed to turn around and actually see his visitors, which, given that he was up to his shoulderblades in a turkey's behind, was not entirely surprising.

Both Twins were frantically rattling in Slinkese to each other, fighting to get into the corner of the kitchen with the kettle, and therefore as far away from the fangirls as possible.

Frodo emerged from the turkey and stripped off the gloves. Then he turned around.

'Frodo, I'd like you to meet my nieces; Alice and Kirsten.' Frodo gave the two girls a careful look. Kirsten smiled nervously and held out a hand, which Frodo dutifully shook, feeling the novelty of shaking hands with someone almost the same height as him. Alice seemed more interested in the Twins, who were almost gibbering under her predatory glare. 'We won't stay long. It's just we were driving past and thought we'd stop off to say Merry Christmas, didn't we girls?'

'Yes, Auntie Sandra.'

'Alice and Kirsten live just over the road, you know. I'm surprised you haven't met before.'

Frodo and the Twins exchanged worried glances.

xxx

'I've never been so embarrassed in my life!'

'What about that time when we were having that party in Ithililillien and-' Legolas successfully clamped a hand over Aragorn's mouth on his third attempt. Faramir decided to take the role of drunken peacekeeper.

'We did say we were sorry.' His attempt at regret was hampered somewhat by the lamp post that, in his version of events, sprung up out of the ground at that moment.

'Thanks to you lot, there are now officially no pubs north of Birmingham that will allow us inside their doors.'

'Most of that was Merry and Pippin's fault,' said Aragorn defensively, as Faramir rubbed his now throbbing jaw.

'Yes, but you put the cherry on top with your stunning rendition of the Hedgehog Song,' Legolas attempted to say. But he seemed to be having trouble controlling his vocal chords.

Faramir and Boromir, in the manner of brothers everywhere, had decided no night of quaffing and carousing would be complete without a few wagers, and Faramir had claimed he could get Legolas drunk faster than Boromir had. Mainly thanks to the fact that he was slipping the poor Elf vodka instead of beer, he had won the bet, which led to an experiment to see exactly how much vodka they could hide in the orange juice before Legolas passed out, with an option on giving him a glass of neat vodka towards the end just to see if he'd mistake it for water and drink it. By the time they were kicked out of the pub, Legolas was up to four shots per glass of juice. Unfortunately for Science, but fortunately for Legolas, they were evicted before this stunning final test could be undertaken.

Legolas gave up on being angry, mostly because he was rapidly forgetting what had got him so annoyed in the first place.

'Takeaway time?'

'Not that thing with the fish.'

'And nothing with horse.'

Aragorn led them in the direction of one of the more highbrow local kebab shops. All five of them linked arms, and all except Legolas (who was feeling a little dizzy and didn't want to open his mouth right now) began singing at the tops of their voices. The pavements were a little on the narrow side, and for a large part of the journey they were in fact walking sideways, but for some reason (and to Eomer's great disappointment) no one gave them any trouble at all.

xxx

'Aha!'

'What?'

'Just got off the phone to the estate agents,' said Dotsie, waving a piece of paper at her partner. Sadie lifted an eyebrow.

'So are we going to pay them a visit then?'

'Not today, love. There's a jumble-sale on this afternoon.'

'PC Andrews was in pretty bad shape before he got to the doctor's though . . . '

'Yes, what was that they threw in his eyes?'

'Turned out to be vanilla essence.'

Sadie drew breath sharply. 'Oooh, that's nasty. It burns.'

'I know. But his testicle retrieval operation went quite well.'

'Poor man.'

'So, looks like we won't be having our Christmas at home after all.'

'This won't take all day. The suspects are apparently only about four foot high. We can take them down no trouble.'

'Mmm. Cup of tea?'

'Yes please.'

xxx

Sam edged in the front door very carefully. After Saturday's horrors, he had been very careful about his approach to the house, just in case he returned to find it overrun again.

He made it into the hallway. This was a good sign. Carefully, carefully past the stairs . . . nothing. Phew. He pushed at the kitchen door and waited, just in case stalkers were lurking on the other side. When nothing happened, he boldly strode forward into the room, only to find his worst nightmare sitting at the table, calmly taking tea with Frodo, Sandra, and one of Legolas's admirers.

Had Frodo had an incident? Was he bent on killing them all?

Was it Sauron? Had he risen with a new and terrible way to take over the earth? Being mobbed to death would be worse than the Nazgûl, Sam reckoned.

Or perhaps it was Merry and Pippin's sick idea of revenge for the attempted handcuff-removal.

'Frodo,' Sam said in a strained voice. 'Won't you introduce me to your visitors?'

Frodo hurriedly said, 'Oh, um, Sam, you know Sandra, and these are her nieces, um, Alice-' Frodo indicated the older of the two girls, '-and, um, Kirsten.'

The girl who had nearly succeeded in asphyxiating Sam by shoving his head in her padded bra waved nervously.

This did not seem to be an overly hostile gesture, so Sam relaxed slightly.

'I've just got in from work,' he said, waving muddy hands. 'I'm just going to go and clean up. Nice to meet you ladies,' he added, and repaired to the bathroom with a sigh of relief.

He really should have locked the door.

Two minutes later Kirsten the Sam Stalker walked brazenly into the bathroom.

'Eek!'

OK, so he was only washing his hands, but that wasn't the point. He could have been doing anything.

Let's stop that train of thought there.

Sam's higher brain abandoned ship right around this point. It had seen what fangirls could do to Legolas, and wanted none of that, thank you very much.

Fortunately, Sam was a father. The parenting nodes of the brain are hardwired into the brainstem; even things like frogs know how to look after their young. So since the forebrain appeared to have buggered off, the hindbrain decided to take over, for its own survival.

'Out of here, young lady!' he said. 'You knock before you go into bathrooms, all right?'

'But- but-'

'No buts. Out!'

Sam slammed the door shut and shot the bolt across, just as Kirsten mumbled in a little voice:

'But I needed the toilet . . .'

'Kirsten!' called Sandra from downstairs. 'Time to go love!'

'Coming!'

xxx

Half an hour later, when the water in the shower had turned freezing cold, Sam got out and poked his head round the door. Seeing no Kirsten, he wandered into the kitchen. Frodo was collapsed over a chopping board, a pile of diced walnuts beside his ear, fast asleep. Sam shook him awake.

'Wstfgl?'

'Is she gone?'

'Wha'?'

'Kirsten. Is she gone?'

'Sam, she left just after you went into the bathroom. Have you been hiding all this time?'

Sam, feeling slightly embarrassed, retaliated with, 'Have you been sleeping all this time?'

Frodo blinked, surprised, then looked at the walnuts. 'I . . . might have been.'

'Frodo, this is getting beyond a joke.'

'I can control my cooking! I can!'

'You need to get some sleep.'

'But I still have croissants to make for breakfast tomorrow!'

'Come on. Bed.' Sam, those parenting instincts still in the driver's seat, started to hustle Frodo up the stairs to the bedroom, or, as Sam would almost certainly have put it at that moment, the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire.

'But it's not ten o clock yet! Aragorn, Legolas, Faramir, Eomer and Boromir all went to the pub! They'll need feeding when they get back!'

'They'll have got kebabs.'

'But-'

'Frodo, I think you need to accept that you have a problem.'

xxx

Merry was not happy. In the past week he had been arrested, punched repeatedly, attacked by a mad ex-monarch with a variety of sharp things, denied special lembas (Frodo had threatened extreme violence to the Twins if they coated his kitchen in flour again), and, to top it all off, he had been handcuffed to Pippin since Saturday. He was now locked in the bomb shelter with a pile of second-hand pornography, and Pippin was being Pippin. At high volume.

'It's no' that bad. You can shut your eyes.'

'Pippin, our hands are stuck together! You're not goin' anywhere near those magazines, and that's that.'

'Ah'll be quick.'

'You always are. The Fifteen Second Wonder, they used to call you.'

'Ah'll be quiet, too.'

'No!'

'Come on, Merry. It'll be like the good old days.'

'What good old days? D'you mean the ones where Boromir used to grope you, or the ones where I had to listen to you shaggin' everyone in sight? Or maybe the days when-'

Pippin ended that little diatribe with a swift punch in the teeth.

'Ah told you never to remind me!'

'Well which days did you mean?'

Pippin wasn't entirely sure. He decided that a combination of coercion and seduction might be of use at this stage in the proceedings, and as this is in theory a clean episode we shall leave the Hobbits for now.

xxx

Christmas Day dawned in a half-hearted attempt at sleet. The Twins, as usual, were first to rise, and bounded into the living room singing carols. Gandalf, wrapped in tinsel and fast asleep in his Chair, ignored them. The kitchen proved equally lacking in festive cheer, although it did yield two unconscious Men and a large quantity of half-eaten kebabs.

Something was missing. Or possibly someone.

The Twins ran through a quick check. The turkeys were in the oven (quite how Frodo had managed to fit both of them into a normal sized gas oven was anyone's guess), the mince pies were threatening to overflow out of the biscuit tin, and the fridge creaked ominously. Nothing amiss there.

Close inspection indicated that the Men at the kitchen table were Eomer and Faramir. The curious rumbling from somewhere Upstairs suggested Boromir was accounted for. The Twins had a slight problem at this stage, as they tried to list everyone who should be in the house, and Elladan counted Gimli three times. Elrohir, meanwhile, was sure there should be someone called Dopey somewhere about the place.

Eventually they gave up, and decided it was high time the rest of the house were awake.

xxx

'Is this the right house?'

'Why don't we ask the gentlemen on the roof?'

Elladan and Elrohir paused in their search for hoof-prints on the depressingly snow-free roof.

'Dude, are they, like, police?'

'I think so. What do they want?'

'A cup of tea and a mince pie?'

'Shall we, like, go and get Frodo?'

'He might start shouting again.'

'But he loves making people tea.'

The Twins shimmied down the drainpipe, and wandered into the kitchen, where Frodo was trying to wrestle the turkeys out of the oven.

'Frodo-dude?'

'There's, like, some people outside who want tea.'

'What? What people? Why are you in my kitchen? No-one's allowed in my kitchen until I ring this little bell, see?' Frodo tinkled the bell he had bought to alert Fellowship members to the presence of food.

Aragorn stuck his head round the door.

'Is it ready? Can we eat now?'

'No, it's not. Go and see who's outside.'

Grumbling, Aragorn disappeared, and the Twins followed, eager for some entertainment. Watching Frodo roasting potatoes was only interesting for about five minutes. They bundled Dave into the cupboard under the stairs on the way past. No point giving the police extra work on Christmas Day, after all.

Aragorn wandered outside, and stopped when he saw the two police officers examining the garden gnomes.

'Oh no. Who's done what now?'

'Can we come in for a cup of tea, dearie? This might take a little while.'

Aragorn groaned, and wondered how he was going to explain this to Frodo. Tensions had already been running high in the kitchen, and after the incident with Eomer and the sprouts, the entire Fellowship had been banished to the living room. Any more trouble was likely to send Frodo careening down the slippery slope to being sectioned.

He led the officers into the kitchen; he didn't think they'd be able to cope with the living room, especially since Gandalf had woken up and was drunkenly looking forward to the Queen's Speech. No one deserved to be subjected to that. The Twins bounced along in Aragorn's wake.

xxx

'Who's that?'

'Don't know.'

'They're wearing uniforms.'

Gandalf perked up at that information.

'Nurses?' he asked.

'No,' said Eomer. 'They've got these weird hats.'

Legolas sighed, and shoved Eomer out of the way. He peered through the crack in the doorway and groaned.

'They're police. Gandalf, what did you do?'

'Me? I'm a poor old man, and I can't walk. What could I do?'

'Set up a mail order bride company? No, I don't want to know.' Legolas slipped out into the hallway, and pressed his ear up against the kitchen door. The others crowded round him.

'What are they saying?'

'Who's in trouble?'

'Ssh!'

'Have they come to take Frodo away?'

'No, it's the mental health people who do that… The Twins are in there!'

'That's not fair!'

'They're saying… it's about Merry and Pippin.' Unfortunately there was no-one for Legolas to share a meaningful glance with, as Eomer, Faramir and Boromir had incarnated several hours after the Hobbits' last little misdemeanour, and Gandalf had returned to the television.

'Speaking of Merry and Pippin, has anyone seen them today?'

Two shrugs, a suspicious look, and an incomprehensible grunt from the living room were all the answer Boromir got.

'I'm going in.'

'No you're not, I'm going in.'

'Says who?'

'Says me!'

Eomer attempted to pull rank:

'Yeah, well, I was a king, and what were you?'

'A skewered steward?'

'Piss off, Faramir. At least I was more butch and manly than my wife.'

'What wife? No-one would have you! And I made Prince, anyway.'

'Prince beats Steward, King beats Prince. I'm going in.'

Legolas, head pounding and tongue furry, couldn't cope with this argument. He dealt with the problem swiftly, by banging Faramir and Boromir's heads together, and, while Eomer fell about laughing, the Elf pulled open the door to the cupboard under the stairs and shoved him inside. Whether Dave was happy about the unexpected visitor to his cupboard Legolas didn't wait around to ascertain. The hunt for answers and Ibuprofen was more important.

xxx

'Hello,' said Legolas cautiously, opening the kitchen door, slipping in, and closing it with alacrity lest one of the large selection of embarrassing hairy men currently available managed to sneak in behind him.

'Hello,' said one of the policewomen from behind her cup of Earl Grey.

Frodo's face was slightly strained, but he looked to be holding up well.

'They've come about Pippin, and, er, Dave,' he said. At this, the Twins looked up from their mince pies (which they were trying to dismantle into their constituent parts for some unknown reason).

'Dave?'

'Like, what did he do?'

'He's been in the cup-' Legolas grabbed both Twins and jerked them to their feet.

'Why don't we go and see if he's awake yet?' the blond Elf said in a forcedly cheerful voice, yanking the Twins out of the kitchen before they could say anything more.

'Now look,' he said, when they were out of the danger zone. 'For today, Merry is called Dave. Just like when he goes to work.'

'Then what's Dave called?'

'Like, he has to have a name...'

'And we can't have two Daves.'

'Like, that would be confusing.'

Legolas sighed the sigh of the adult-faced-with-annoying-child.

'Alright, what would you like Dave to be called?'

'Shirley!'

'Fred!'

'Like, Luthien!'

'Dude, that's perfect!'

Legolas rolled his eyes.

'Alright, Luthien it is. But he's not coming out of the closet until they've gone.'

'Dude, I don't think he's coming out of the closet anyway.'

'Yeah, he likes, like, drugs way more than dudes.'

Legolas suppressed the urge to smack the Peredhil round the back of their heads. Then something occurred to him.

'Where _are _Merry and Pippin?'

'Dude! That's what's missing!'

'Like, the short dudes!'

Legolas thought as quickly as his hungover brain would allow. He had a sneaking suspicion that they had left the Hobbits somewhere, but for the life of him he couldn't remember where. What had Frodo done with them when he forcibly evicted everyone from the kitchen?

With a horrible sinking feeling in his admittedly already queasy stomach, Legolas remembered.

'We left them in the bomb shelter!' he hissed, hoping like hell that the policewomen couldn't hear him.

'Dude! That's, like, harsh.'

'Yeah, and at Christmas too.'

'You're, like, evil.'

'Like, totally.'

'Ssh! If they find out they'll ring… They'll ring Social Services… And they'll… Yes!'

'They'll throw you in, like, prison for bad parenting?'

'They'll take Merry and Pippin away! They'll put them in a children's home!' Legolas was giddy with glee, or possibly just with alcohol threatening to make a repeat appearance.

'Dude, isn't that, like, bad?'

Legolas didn't reply. He was wondering how best to communicate this amazing new plan to Aragorn and Frodo without the police officers noticing. Frodo, he suspected, might be a problem; Merry and Pippin were his cousins, and despite their constant bickering, he was rather attached to them. Aragorn, meanwhile, was bound to back him up.

He returned to the kitchen, all set to say, when asked 'Where are the children?', 'They're buried in a bomb shelter in the back garden with a pile of pornography'. Aragorn, alas, had vanished. A glance through the kitchen window almost made the Elf faint with horror.

Merry and Pippin were in the garden, slightly muddy and looking distinctly the worse for wear. Aragorn was trying to both hurry them up and bribe them into silence at the same time. Presumably he had caved under pressure from Frodo. Damn!

The handcuffs, he noticed, were still in place. It might still be possible to get the Hobbits taken away – but no, they were proper police handcuffs, and, even worse, the officers in the kitchen might have the key.

Legolas sank into a chair. Thus far, this seemed set to be the worst Christmas since St. Petersburg, 1717, although Christmas 2004 at least smelled better.

The Hobbits were ushered into the kitchen, looking sullen. On seeing the police calmly sipping tea, they each tried to shuffle behind the other. Before this could degenerate into a fully fledged scrap, Aragorn picked them up, one under each arm, and deposited them at the WPCs' feet.

'Are these the ones?'

Dotsie checked the grainy security camera picture. It was difficult to make out the details, but Pippin was instantly recognisable, even with the dreads, which not even the sharpest scissors in the house seemed able to cut through. The Twins had done their job well.

'That certainly appears to be them,' said Sadie. 'Shall we get those handcuffs off?'

Merry and Pippin nodded vigorously.

Dotsie delved into her handbag and produced a small key and a tattered and folded piece of cloth. As she released the Hobbits, Sadie asked:

'Can any of you identify this?'

'That's my bedsheet!' said Frodo suddenly, with an accusatory glare at Merry and Pippin.

'Your bedsheet?'

'Look.' Frodo took one corner of the muddied fabric and showed everyone the label, which said (in English, Westron and Quenya) 'Frodo Baggins.'

'Frodo, no-one speaks Westron any more.'

'You all do. Aragorn definitely does.'

'And is Aragorn likely to steal your bedsheets?'

'Well Merry and Pippin did-'

'So this object is definitely yours then, sir?' asked Dotsie.

'Yes.'

'And did you write on it?'

'What? No!' Frodo turned to look at the foot-shuffling Merry and Pippin. 'Have you been writing on my bedsheets?'

'Just t'one.'

Frodo was outraged. This looked promising, thought Sadie. At this rate there wouldn't be many protests when they made the arrests.

'Dotsie, if you'll take the other end,' she said, holding it out. Dotsie took it and walked to the other end of the kitchen, so that the banner stretched out in front of the stunned Fellowship.

The legend 'CAPTAIN JANEWAY FOR PRESIDENT' greeted their astonished eyes.

Aragorn burst out laughing. Legolas put a hand to his forehead and looked pained, as only an Elf with a tension headache and a stinking hangover can. Frodo looked like he was going to blow a gasket. He'd gone a dark, dull red.

'You drew on my bedsheet,' he hissed. Merry blanched. Hell hath no fury like a Frodo with damaged household accoutrements. He started forward, and Pippin panicked.

'Run like buggery, Merry!' he shouted, and started off like an Olympic sprint champion, Merry closely behind.

'They're escaping!' shouted Sadie, Dotsie and Frodo at the same time. All three ran after the rapidly departing Hobbits, into the hallway.

'Stop! Police!'

'Not on your life!' yelled Pippin back.

'Stop! Or I'll . . . shout 'Stop!' again!' Dotsie cursed the lack of leverage inherent in this threat. All she got from Merry or Pippin was a snigger.

Reaching the front door, Pippin kicked it open and kept running, leaping over the Christmas wreath that his violence had brought down, and into the front garden. Merry was not so lucky. The wreath entangled him and down he went. Sadie grabbed him and held him aloft. This was mainly so that Frodo, who was snapping like a pit-bull, couldn't reach him.

Dotsie was still after Pippin.

By dint of having longer legs, by halfway down the garden she'd caught him up. She launched herself in a flying tackle and brought him down just before he managed to get a hand on the gate.

Normally, being pinned down by a woman in uniform would have made Pippin very happy. This was mitigated by the mud, dreadlocks, the fact that she was as skinny as a rake and vey strong, and that she was intent on arresting him.

'You,' she panted, 'Are coming with me.' And she hauled him up to the house.

To Be Continued . . . when Bridget wakes up and Trojie recovers from her chocolate overdose.

A/N; Well this is somewhat over ten thousand words long, and we'd reached a suitable cliffhanger, and in order to have something out for Christmas/Boxing Day, we've stopped here. Epilogue/Part Three/All Loose Ends Tied Up coming soon!


	3. Part Three Epilogue

The 'I Can't Face A Christmas Without A BagEnders Special'

PseudoBagEnders Christmas Special

'The Passage of the Fangirls'

Epilogue

by Bridget and Trojie

Disclaimer; None of the characters herein are ours. The Fellowship, the Twins, Faramir, Eowyn and Eomer all belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. Dave is Lady Alyssa and Random Dent's. The characterisation of the Tolkien characters is from LA and RD's BagEnders, which we are trying to emulate.

Naturally, Dotsie, Sadie, various mangled lines, and general ambience are all either property of the Great Terry or inspired by him.

Anything Shakespearean is not ours. Anything 'Buffy' is not ours either, and we take no responsibility for the erratic programming of the BBC. Charlie Dimmock belongs to herself, as does James Marsters. Only in his case it's a himself.

WARNING: Silly slash hints in this epilogue. Because we couldn't resist. But they're incredibly mild, so if you're an avid non-slasher, don't run away.

xxx

Boxing Day 2004 

'Frodo, don't you think food parcels are a little extreme? They're only in the police station down the road, not a POW camp.'

'I don't care. They need to keep their strength up.'

'They won't thank you for the sprouts, you know.'

Frodo lifted his chin. 'I shall ask the duty officer to be sure they eat their vegetables,' he said in a determined voice as he stacked packages of turkey, stuffing and all the other accoutrements of a world-record sized Christmas Dinner into his tartan shopping bag.

'I'm going now. I shan't be long.'

'Frodo, it's Boxing Day, they'll be let go. They won't really keep them in any longer, they think they're only ten. And then you can feed them all the leftover turkey you like.'

But it was no use. Frodo had gone.

'If Bob Geldof had had him, then we wouldn't have to worry about all those starving children. Frodo would have found a way to feed them all,' said Aragorn, watching the resolute little Hobbit trundle down the path.

'If Bob Geldof had had him, maybe we wouldn't have been forced to listen to that bloody Band Aid song all Christmas,' said Boromir from the living room, where he had overcome his nose's objection to the Smell and had settled down to watch Buffy with Gandalf. If he plugged his ears with cotton wool then it _almost _cut out the heavy breathing. It cut out most of the 'witty repartee' too, but since when did any red-blooded male watch Buffy for the dialogue?

The Buffy theme tune had alerted the other members of the household to the prospect of imminent sweaty-fighting-women, and opportunities for ripped shirts, and all save the elven members crowded into the living room for a bit of 'quality viewing'. The absence of Frodo meant that they could enjoy Boxing Day the way the Valar intended, via blobbing and watching television, rather than out in the freezing sleet and gale force winds going for a 'nice healthy walk.' It had been unanimously decided that, for this reason alone, Merry and Pippin would be entirely forgiven for all transgressions pertaining to handcuffs, bed-sheets and the feisty captain of the USS Voyager.

xxx

Legolas sat at the top of the stairs, staring gloomily at nothing in particular. This was not an uncommon pose for the Elf, especially at Christmas. There was something about the sparkliness and the good cheer that gave him intense and inexplicable urges to go rummaging through Aragorn's old chests of extremely pointy things in the loft, and put them to the uses they were originally intended for. Well, mostly. In the case of, for example, Gandalf, he was willing to exercise a little creativity.

Voices came through from the airing cupboard and punctuated his gloom.

'_Dude, what's that, like, vibe?'_

'_Dunno. It's like, totally evil though.'_

'_Makes you want to hurt people.'_

'…_With forks, I think.'_

'_No, like, blunter than that.'_

'_Paperclips?'_

The prince of Mirkwood ignored the inane babble, and banged his head against the banister. He'd seen depressed people doing things like that on the dread box in the living room. Maybe the repeated thumping was supposed to dislodge all of the negative emotions?

'_Can you hear that?'_

'_That, like, repetitive banging noise?'_

'_Yeah.'_

'_Like, yeah.'_

'_Are the little dudes home yet?'_

The airing cupboard door opened a crack.

'It's Mirkydude!'

'Mirkydude! Like, what's wrong?'

Legolas tried to remember what the big spiky ball of metal on a chain was called, and mentally thanked himself for not forcing Aragorn to throw it away when they last moved house. He made a move to get up, but the Twins took an elbow each, and dragged him into the airing cupboard.

Once safely ensconced within its foetid walls, the Twins took it upon themselves to discover the problem with Legolas, and try to cheer him up. All attempts, however, met with sullen silence and carefully folded arms, until Elladan, giving up for the time being, asked;

'What was that, like, shouting about?'

'Yeah, like, just before you came upstairs?'

Legolas tightened his grip on his own elbows, and remained resolutely silent. The reason for the shouting (and cackling, sniggering and general excitement) was a secret he was determined to take to his grave, should he ever succeed in terminally escaping the Fellowship.

'What, and I realise I may regret asking this, are the pair of you doing in the airing cupboard?' he asked, in a futile attempt to change the subject. The Twins looked shifty, but were saved from answering by the sudden patter of footsteps and crashing of the fridge door that heralded the return of the Hobbits.

'Elladan! Elrohir!' came Frodo's voice from the bottom of the stairs. He didn't sound at all happy, and Elrohir, in a desperate effort to escape the wrath of the Hobbit, forcibly kicked his brother out of the cupboard and burrowed under a pile of towels.

Legolas raised an eyebrow.

'Aren't you supposed to be noble and honourable?'

A squeak from the quivering towel heap indicated that honour was not an issue in the face of an irate Frodo. The Twins had long ago learned that, in such a situation, the best course of action was to run away, or, failing that, sacrifice one Twin in order that the other might live to see another sunrise.

'You're going to abandon him to torment and death in the hands of a cantankerous Hobbit?'

Elrohir popped his head out from the towels.

'Dude! At least this way I'll be around to nurse him back to health!'

The almost total lack of American affectations was a clear indicator of the Elf's terror.

'You don't even know what you're supposed to have done.'

'Doesn't matter. He'll do The Face.'

'The Face?'

Elrohir seemed disinclined to elaborate, so Legolas dragged him out of the airing cupboard by his ankle.

'Dude! Have mercy!' The shrieks were mirrored by the faint sounds of Elladan's suffering downstairs. But Legolas wasn't feeling particularly charitable today. The return of the Hobbits, combined with the derisive snorts and badly suppressed laughter that had followed him out of the living room, had put him in a distinctly bad mood, and seeing Frodo being angry at someone else would probably cheer him up.

As Elrohir's head banged on every step on the way down to the kitchen, Legolas muttered to himself under his breath.

' . . . wish I could live in a crypt . . . away from Twins . . . ooh . . . leather coat . . .'

For the sake of coherence, it should be pointed out that one reason Legolas tended not to watch Buffy with the other members of the household was because the subject of his amorous remarks rather differed from that of the rest of the Fellowship. It is entirely possible that he should have, with hindsight, realised that telling a roomful of people including Boromir and Gandalf that he had a yen for a very blond, very male vampire was about the worst idea he'd had since going on the bloody Quest in the first place.

Sighing, the blond Elf decided to deliver Elrohir to Frodo personally, out of a combination of curiosity and desire to see exactly which of Frodo's many patented Disapproving Faces it was that the Twins feared so much.

xxx

'Ah, Elrohir, good of you to join us.'

The Elf in question made a small noise, not unlike a cornered rodent, and joined his brother at the kitchen table. Frodo got straight to business.

'I saw something very interesting when I went to pick up Merry and Pippin.' It was a mark of how much power The Face (for the curious, it was No. 3.5: Severe Disapproval with a Tinge of Disappointment) had over the Twins that they didn't try to guess at what interesting thing Frodo had seen, and so he continued.

'It was on a bus stop. Someone had been writing graffiti on it.'

'Isn't that what people normally do with bus stops?' asked Legolas.

'Funnily enough, no,' said Frodo, his arms folding in a menacing fashion. 'Normal people wait for buses in bus stops. Notice I say "people", Elladan, Elrohir.'

The Twins didn't meet his eyes.

'As in human people,' the Hobbit continued.

'What about Gimli, he's not human.'

'He's a statistical error. That's not the point.'

'What _is _the point?' Legolas asked, as the Twins subtly tried to slide under the table.

'Have you seen the bus stop recently? Go and have a look.'

Looking bemused, Legolas exited. Frodo took advantage of the opportunity to make a cup of tea, and as he sat down with a ginger biscuit, the Elf returned, looking no less confused. He opened his mouth to berate the Twins, but closed it again as a vague memory came back to him. On the way back from the pub on Christmas Eve, the Twins had joined them. The details of the return journey were hazy, but he seemed to remember singing a song about the Knights of the Round Table . . . and . . . sequined vests? Hmm. Maybe memory loss was a good thing.

'Well?'

'It must have been them, no one else knows how to speak Elvish,' Legolas declared. Because he was feeling vindictive, however, he added, 'Or maybe it was Aragorn.'

'Dude, that's right!'

'Yeah, it was, like, Aragorn!'

'Not us at all!'

'We're innocent!'

Frodo looked at them suspiciously. 'Why would Aragorn write that on a bus shelter?'

'He was drunk?'

'That wouldn't surprise me, but really, orcs don't even exist any more.'

The kitchen door opened. It was the Ranger in question, looking hopeful.

'Did someone say orcs? Have they managed to clone them from dead insects yet?'

'We were just having a little talk about the bus shelter up the street. Sit down.'

'Um, well, we were going to watch Star Trek actually…'

'That wasn't a question. Sit!'

Aragorn sat, looking just as scared as the Twins. Legolas leaned back against the doorframe to enjoy the show, an annoyingly superior smirk plastered across his face. It was incredible, he thought, the level of terrified obedience engendered by a deranged Hobbit.

Frodo began. 'Can everyone here who speaks Quenya put their hands up please?'

Aragorn, the Twins, Legolas and Frodo himself all put their hands up. Frodo glared round the room.

'Now. I didn't do it. Legolas didn't do it, because . . . wait a minute.' Frodo subjected Legolas to a Face. But before he managed to even start another sentence, perhaps demanding an alibi of some sort, Legolas was gone.

xxx

Aragorn raised a tentative hand. 'Um, what exactly did we do?'

'Defaced public property! Every time, _every_ time I think we're starting to fit into this neighbourhood, one of you ruins it!'

'Dude, like, he's talking about some graffiti in a bus shelter-' Elladan whispered to Aragorn.

'Silence!' barked Frodo, whose grip on sanity really was loosening now. 'And do you know the worst part?' he continued ominously.

'No?' said Aragorn and the Twins in chorus.

'The grammar!'

Aragorn decided that this had gone far enough. He too recalled some singing on the way home from the pub on Christmas Eve, and had suspicious blank spots in his memory, but this did not, he decided, amount to definitive guilt on whatever Frodo was charging them with. And when all was said and done, he was Aragorn, son of Arathorn, King of Gondor and Arnor, and Frodo was naught but a lowly Hobbit, bigods! This was not to be borne!

'Take us to this graffiti!' he declaimed, making a grand gesture. Frodo looked up at him mulishly.

'Fine. Get your coat.'

'Gondor has no coat. Gondor needs no-'

'Yes Gondor bloody well does. It's hanging on the peg. And you two will have to borrow whichever ones you can find.'

'Like, we brought coats.'

'You brought coats, but, to take an example at random, no underwear?'

'Like, we brought underwear.'

'We're wearing it.'

'Yeah, like, you only need one pair-'

'And you turn it inside out every second day-'

'And then you can put a coat in the space that the unnecessary extra underwear isn't taking up!'

'It's a completely brilliant plan!'

'Elladan, Elrohir, you need more than one pair of underpants.'

'Do not.'

'Do so.'

'Do not.'

'Do- oh, for Varda's sake! When we get back you're to borrow some of Legolas's underwear while I wash yours, understood?'

'Like, Mirkwood Dude won't like us wearing his pants-'

'Frodo, I can't find my coat!' shouted Aragorn from the hallway.

'It should be on the peg!'

'It's not!'

'Have you tried the cupboard under the stairs?'

'No . . .'

There were muffled sounds of clanking and banging, and then swearing, less muffled because of the volume of it, and finally;

'Found it!'

'Good.'

Frodo herded the Twins down the hallway, out of the door and into the street, collecting Aragorn from the understairs cupboard on the way. They proceeded down the street towards the bus-stop.

The Twins were the first to spot the offending sentence. The started sniggering quietly to themselves. Then Aragorn saw it, and had to hide his grin by pulling the hood of his coat right down over his face. It was only when Frodo had to push him out of the way of a street-light that he decided to sacrifice levity for vision, and bit the inside of his lip to keep from grinning, as Frodo marched them up to the bus shelter and pointed violently at the graffiti.

'Gwaith estennin Yrch badir i adab,' said Frodo in a voice as cold as the sleet that howled around them. 'Would anyone care to hazard a rough translation? Elrohir?' The name was used as if it were a weapon. Elrohir, all sniggering forgotten, gulped.

'Um, like, 'People called Orcs . . .'

'Yes?'

' . . . they . . . go . . . the house?'

xxx

'All right,' said Legolas, coming through into the living room after his hurried retreat from the kitchen. 'Who let the Twins watch Monty Python?'

'Wasnae me,' said Pippin through a mouthful of lasagne sandwich. 'Ah wis in pris'n, remember?' He glared at Legolas. The Elf decided that this was not the time to bring up the fine distinction between 'prison', and 'the cells at the local cop-shop', and instead moved on to the next person in line for questioning.

'Gandalf? Was it you?'

'Feck off!'

'He's been watching Buffy re-runs all week,' said Faramir, who still had his eyes glued to the screen. 'Wasn't him.'

'If he's been watching Buffy all week, then how did the Twins manage to see Monty Python?' asked Boromir, for once the voice of almost-reason (readers take note - this may never happen again).

'Must have snuck in while he was asleep,' reasoned Legolas. He also had vague memories of stopping off at an all-night video shop on the way back from the pub, but pushed away any feelings of guilt. He hadn't done the actual writing, and the spiked fruit juice ought to exonerate him of all blame, anyway.

'Anyway, how d'you know the Twins've bin watching Monty Python?' asked Merry.

'Gwaith estennin Yrch badir i adab,' intoned Legolas solemnly.

Merry, Pippin, Sam, Eomer and the two sons of the Steward regarded him blankly. Gandalf cackled. Then Legolas remembered that all the Quenya-speaking members of the household (with the exception of Gandalf, naturally) were in fact out looking at the graffiti.

'Never mind,' he said, and went to sit despondently at the top of the stairs again, as the current Buffy episode was one of the many in which James Marsters took his shirt off, and he just couldn't face any more catcalls.

Faramir was moving his lips silently, trying to work something out.

'What is it?' asked Boromir, curious.

'Sshh. Almost got it . . . something about orcs? And a house?'

'That's ridiculous. Orcs don't live in houses.'

'Maybe they were burning it. That sounds like orcs.'

'But still, there aren't any orcs left any more.'

'Shut up! Buffy's on again!'

The brief period of cogitation afforded by Legolas's interruption had officially ended.

The rest of Buffy passed without incident, unless you count the occasional sniggering erupting from Gandalf and Boromir at random intervals. Star Trek was next, and everyone present was looking forward to scantily clad ladies with plastic foreheads in very tight suits. Unfortunately, no one had bothered to check the TV guide and see what havoc the BBC had decided to wreak on the Christmas scheduling, and instead of exotic alien beauties, the screen was suddenly filled with Charlie Dimmock.

There was only one appreciative murmur, and several cushions immediately flew in the direction of Sam's head.

It could have been worse. It could have been snooker. But Sam was fastest, and several bodies, most of them bigger than him, piled on top of him in an attempt to wrestle the remote from his surprisingly firm grip. Through the assorted thumps, clunks, groans and yelps a few of Ms Dimmock's words could be heard.

'… Charity garden … Children in Africa … Lots of volunteers … Then the turnips … And I'm going to be doing a lovely water feature.'

That was enough to gain Sam a brief respite, as all heads turned in the desperate hope that a charity volunteer with a sense of humour would attempt to instigate a wet T-shirt competition.

The living room was filled with shocked silence. The lovely unrestrained breasts were in the foreground, but, trundling a wheelbarrow along in the corner of the screen, a look of utter bliss on his face, was . . . Sam?

'What?' he protested to the accusing glares. 'I do have a life outside these walls, you know.'

'But you're on telly!'

'That's no' fair! We got arrested and we didnae get on telly!'

'If everyone who ever got arrested got on telly, there'd be no time left for Buffy.'

'But t'coppers think we're ten! That's got to be newsworthy.'

'More to the point, there's no Star Trek because he's on telly,' Eomer remarked, putting his finger on the crux of the problem. There was a definite change in the atmosphere of the room at that point, and the glares in Sam's direction suddenly all held a hint of menace.

'It's not my fault! I'm not in charge of scheduling at the BBC!'

'S'your fault the programme's fit to be aired at this time o' day.'

'What, so I should have instigated a bloodbath so they wouldn't show it before 9 o'clock?'

'No. You should've told us what you was up to, and we'd've come and . . . helped out.'

'You mean you'd've made perverted comments and tried to pull Charlie Dimmock's trousers down?'

'Give us some credit, we've got more subtlety than that.'

'Subtlety, is that what you call it? Most people call it assault!'

'Oh, you want to try assault, do you?'

'No! I want you to go away!'

It was a shame for Merry and Pippin that they chose to attack Sam at that moment, as it meant they weren't watching the screen, and so didn't see that Sam really did care about them after all. As Charlie Dimmock leant over her partially constructed water feature, Sam-on-the-telly snuck up behind her with a hose pipe. An increase in heavy breathing alerted the Hobbits, but they were too late. By the time they disentangled themselves, she was already wrapped in a towel.

Merry took this as reasonable grounds to continue the assault.

xxx

'Dave?'

'Like, Daaaave?'

The Twins had discovered that Dave was missing, and were instigating a search, which largely consisted of wandering the hallway, shouting his name and rattling the Paxman food dish, which no-one had got round to getting rid of yet.

'Shut up!'

'Go away!'

'He's not here!'

'Dude, what if he's upstairs?'

'We left the lembas up there!'

In a rare display of co-ordination, Paxman dish forgotten, the Twins raced up to the loft.

'Dave!'

'Dave, are you up there?'

'Hunh?' Dave's head appeared, upside down, through the hatch of the loft. Elladan and Elrohir climbed up to join him, with Elrohir deftly catching him as his grip and concentration gave out simultaneously.

He was still wearing Pippin's shorts and the Jim Morrison t-shirt, and appeared to be still conscious, which meant he probably hadn't found the special lembas yet.

'Dude, like, what are we going to do with him?'

'Well we're still, like, in the planning stages, so he'd better stay.'

'Right. Dave?' Elladan tried to attract the human's attention. 'Should we, like, let Hobbit-dudes in on the plan?'

'No. Frodo-dude might not let us.'

'Mirkydude definitely won't.'

'But it'd get us out of the house! And he, like, likes that! When we're gone.'

'No, we have to wait. We don't even have a place yet.'

'A fireproof one.'

'I don't think Gondor-dude has enough stuff left in the tin.'

'Like, that's for waterproofing things. Fire-proofing would be different.'

'Oh.'

xxx

Legolas was still sitting on the steps when Aragorn came up quietly and sat down next to him. The silence endured for a while, then;

'Aren't you missing Star Trek?'

'Doesn't matter. Weren't any trees anyway.' An awkward pause, then: 'So. James Marsters . . .'

'Look, Aragorn, just go away.'

'Sorry. I'm not trying to take the piss, I'm just . . .' Aragorn sighed. 'Christmas really isn't your time of year, is it?'

Legolas scowled. 'It's the . . . the festivity. It really gets me down.'

'I know.'

More silence. Neither Aragorn nor Legolas was making eye-contact; Aragorn was staring fixedly at the ceiling, and Legolas had apparently found something fascinating in the weave of the carpet that was taking up all his attention.

Legolas felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked across at Aragorn, who had an awkward expression on his face.

'What?' said Legolas, suddenly feeling inexplicably tongue-tied.

Aragorn coughed nervously, then said, 'Um, you know, James Marsters really isn't that bad . . .'

Legolas stared at him in disbelief.

'. . . when you think about it. I think it's the blond hair . . .'

Aragorn's hand inexpertly caressed the strands of blond hair that overlaid Legolas's shoulder, in what he thought was a soothing yet saucy manner.

'Aragorn, what are you doing?'

'Trying to make you feel better?'

'It feels like you're trying to brush cat hairs off me.' Aragorn stopped, and sighed.

'Actually, I think it's the low-grade nastiness delivered in a sarcastic English accent.'

'You're trying to make me feel better by pretending to fancy someone off the telly, and I'm supposed to appreciate it?' Legolas thumped his head on the banister again, just for good measure, but it still wasn't doing any good.

'How about we go away somewhere next Christmas?' Aragorn suggested. 'Just you and me, somewhere hot.'

'They'd find a way to ruin it. They always do.'

'Who? The Hobbits?'

'The Twins. It's like they've got some sort of radar that senses when people really want them to be elsewhere, but they're confusing the signals.'

'I expect Elrond taught them that. He loves messing with people's heads.'

'Bastard.'

They settled into another gloomy silence. Legolas gradually became aware that Aragorn had resumed stroking his shoulder.

'Aragorn?'

'Hmmm?' Aragorn appeared to be rather engrossed in the wayward strands of blond.

'Well I think we'd better move this off the stairs, in any case.'

xxx

'Right. I've had enough o' this.'

'Of what?'

'You and those bloody things on your head.'

'S'no' my fault the Twins thought Ah wis a dolly an' did me hair.'

'Yes, but every time you turn your head suddenly they smack me in t'face.'

'Well you shouldnae sit so close.'

'Pippin, you are sittin' on my knee.'

'S'comfortable.'

'Not for me.'

'You never complained before when Ah sat on your knee.'

'You never had rats' tails comin' out your head before.'

'Ah'm gettin' used to them. Think Ah might keep 'em.' Pippin tossed his head in what he mistakenly believed to be a seductive and glamorous fashion, and one of the dreadlocks hit Merry in the eye. Merry stood up, one eye screwed shut, and grabbed Pippin round the back of the ear as he tumbled to the floor.

'What're you doin'? Let go o' me!'

'Those things are comin' off. Now!'

'But we tried the scissors! Nothing works!'

'Gimli keeps a blowtorch in the cupboard under the sink.'

'What!'

'If we can't cut 'em off, we'll burn 'em off.'

'Did you no' learn anything from Aragorn and the chainsaw?'

'That was different. This time I get to be the maniac.'

Pippin struggled wildly but in vain. Merry dragged him in the direction of the kitchen, ignoring all protests.

They entered the kitchen slowly, mostly because Pippin had assumed the starfish position in the doorway, and Merry, heavy though he was, was struggling to shift him. The tussle meant that neither of them noticed Frodo until they had fallen into the kitchen and rolled to a halt at his feet. He looked down at them and smiled evilly.

'Ah, Merry, Pippin. Just the Hobbits I wanted a word with.'

He pointed at the table. They sat, vaguely alarmed, and surveyed the assorted items spread before them. A shirt, covered in red handprints. A Polaroid photo of the Hobbits' bedroom, in which thankfully few details could be made out but a red and sticky theme was clearly apparent. A spoon. Two empty jars.

Merry gulped.

'We'd better humour him. You know how close he is to losing his marbles again,' Pippin whispered. Merry nodded mutely, and prepared for the worst as Frodo sat down, a look of terminal insanity plastered across his face.

'Shall we have a little discussion about jam?'

xxx

Epiepilogue 

In a cop-shop not very far away…

'But if they're only ten years old why can't we find any school records?'

'I don't know, Dotsie, but the fact of the matter is that their birth certificates clearly show that they were born in 1994, and as such we can't hold them any longer!'

'But the gentleman who came to pick them up didn't seem that much older than them . . .'

Sadie frowned. 'I know. There's something fishy going on in that house . . .'

Fin. For now.

Trojie's A/N: Well that was a riotous Christmas. We've decided we've had so much fun writing this (even if it did mean that we (read; Bridget) lost vast quantities of sleep due to having a time-zone barrier to overcome) that we're going to write more. This is just too much fun to stop doing.

Bridget's A/N: She's right. She's got me hooked now. I take no responsibility, it's all Trojie's fault. Well, hers and the lack of sleep's.


End file.
